cochabamba is the third largest city in
bolivia in 1999 they privatized their
water supply but the next year 2000 the
entire thing was undone this turned out
to be a very dramatic event it's been a
focal point of protest for people who
oppose the idea of privatized water and
it became a focal point of protest for
the anti-globalization movement so let's
look just a little more closely at
exactly what happened
prior to privatization the water
situation in cochabamba was fairly grim
the government company covered only 57
percent of the population and they had
50 losses in terms of what's called
unaccounted for water most of that came
from leakages
there were serious problems of water
availability there was lots of water
rationing there were often problems with
water pressure and in general no one
really was happy with how things had
been
large numbers of people were dependent
either on private wells or private
vendors and those sources of water were
more expensive hard to carry time
consuming and had numerous other
disadvantages
the contract started in november of 1999
and by january 1st there was an average
water price increase of about 35 percent
part of the problem was that the price
had gone up but people didn't yet see
any way in which their water service
quality had gotten better so of course
they were upset at first there were
roadblocks and strikes the price for
water was reduced a bit then there was a
shutdown of the city people still
weren't happy there was police
repression a lot of people were injured
many were imprisoned and by the time we
get to spring what had happened is there
were frequent riots in cochabamba there
were numerous people dead and injured
and overall it had become a crisis of
national and of even international
importance
it was portrayed as a kind of classic
battle between indigenous peasants and
profit-making private corporations
one of the biggest problems with this
privatization was that it also created a
lot of coercive monopoly power most
significantly the private company which
was granted the franchise also was given
monopolistic rights over the provision
of all water water services within
cochabamba now this turned out to be
quite important precisely because the
water supply had been so bad
rich in middle class very often used
whales and storage tanks for their water
supply and very often the poor used a
tanker based vendor or some other source
sometimes even just collecting the rain
water
all of a sudden these new sources were
actually supposed to legally come under
control of the private company many
people felt quite justifiably that all
of a sudden their water had been taken
away from them and that the rain which
was falling from the sky or the water
coming up in private wells was all of a
sudden supposed to be controlled by this
private company this only fed the sense
of injustice
so what finally happened by april of
2000 actually control of the water was
given back to a public company and the
experiment in privatization was at an
end it really really was a disaster it
was done very poorly and it created a
lot of bad publicity for the idea of
privatization even at a global level the
entire episode also set a bad precedent
that is all of the negotiations and
decision-making over the setting of the
prices of water these basically went
through the central government and they
very rapidly became political issues
when at least in theory they were
supposed to have been handled by the
water regulator so the notion of having
an independent water regulate regulator
which would somehow apply objectively a
set of regulations to a company based on
rule of law
uh the coach obama example showed that
this had failed the entire process
became politicized very quickly
the saddest news however is this when
the water supply was returned to the
public sector actually water provision
didn't really get any better and to this
day water provision in cochabamba
remains a very serious problem
if you'd like a good source on this
entire episode read this article