PREPAID METERS LEAD TO UNNECESSARY LOSS OF LIVES - CPP

The Ghana Water Company (GWC) has announced plans to introduce prepaid meter services for water by the end of the year.

This comes on the back of an increasing state mantra that 'Nothing in life is free' and a need for “full cost recovery”

The Convention People's Party (CPP) wishes to remind GWC and the Government of Ghana (GOG) about the requirements of Ghana's constitution.

Article 12. (2) Entitles every Ghanaian to fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual.

Article 35. (3) Requires the State to promote just and reasonable access by all citizens to public facilities and services in accordance with law.

Article 36. (2) (e) notes the recognition that the most secure democracy is the one that assures the basic necessities of life for its people as a fundamental duty.

Water is a right and not a privilege and it's required by all for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning, sanitation, and to remain healthy. A necessity of life. Thus the situation where if a citizen of our country is thirsty and needs a cup or calabash of water, they must first insert money into a machine is not acceptable to the CPP.

The United Nations Commission on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights considers water to be “indispensable for leading a life in human dignity” and “a prerequisite for the realisation of other human rights.”

Prepaid meters would be a violation of these human rights and human dignity.

Increasingly the state reneges on its responsibility to provide for the basic needs of its citizens.

It is allowing for policies which place the need to increase profits above the needs and human dignity of those who can least afford to buy services.

The GWC's plan will only allow people access to water only if they pay for it, and this will:

• Cut off large sections of Ghana's population from water all together.

• Increase the financial burden on the poor who have inadequate disposable incomes or no income at all.

• Have a serious effect on individuals, households, and communities, with the basic survival and health needs of people placed under threat of Cholera, dysentery, other diseases and possible death as those who cannot pay for water will inevitably look for alternatives which are often unsafe water.

• Loss of dignity by many in their communities, with increased fracture in social relations.

• Breach of social norms.
• Women, in particular, will face increased pressures as when money is not available for such a basic necessity as water, women often shoulder the responsibility, and face increased domestic violence.

• Tensions will rise between husband and wife over how limited finances get spent, compounded by an already difficult situation of high electricity prices, fuel price rises, transportation and food cost hikes, illness, hunger, unemployment etc.

• Divisions in communities over differential access to water. Creating and adding to a two tier society or community.

Our cultural norm teaches that no person should ever deny water. In times of crisis, households have relied on neighbours for water. Large events, such as weddings and funerals, also make communal use of large quantities of water. A prepaid meter places all social and cultural norms at risk.

We note the demands of the World Bank, that prepaid technology is desirable as it reduces the non-payment of services and that prepaid meters can "facilitate cost-recovery and accelerate private sector participation in provision of water services" that it can make “sustainable management” of water resources possible. We reject their view and also the argument that citizens can receive improved water services with prepaid water meters.

Our view is that prepaid electricity meters have not brought greater efficiency and often short changes consumers with the ongoing Dumsor! Dumsor! That the intended policy better serves the interests of a few transnational corporations, whose profit motive require prepaid systems of delivery of water and payment for its use, but actually reduces people's access to water rather than improving it.

Monsanto, the corporation known for its role in promoting the use of genetically modified organisms, (GMO's) also makes money in water provision and management.

The CPP hopes that this is not an attempt to line up Ghana Water for yet another reckless

privatisation.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 25 litres of water is the basic minimum amount of water needed per day for basic human survival. It also says that 100 litres of water are needed per person per day in order for an individual to lead a healthy life.

GWC and the GOG should tell the nation what it proposes to charge per litre so that households can begin to quantify what it will cost them per day to have water, or to be thirsty and not be able to afford to drink water.

Lessons abound across the globe which should guide the GWC and GOG .In KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, 6 months after prepaid meters were installed, a cholera epidemic broke out. The households in the area were unable to pay for the clean water and instead used water from sources infected by cholera. As a result of the scale of the epidemic, the prepaid system in Madlebe was abandoned.

In the United Kingdom when there was a rise in the number of reported cases of dysentery in 1992, the reason for the increase was found to be the water companies 'practice of cutting off people's water supply regardless of the health risks involved in order to recoup debts from defaulting customers. Public outrage resulted in the introduction of a number of strict requirements in the Water Services Act of 1999, including the prohibition of any service provider from discontinuing water services without notifying the Social Services Department 4 weeks in advance. Water companies introduced a system of prepaid water meters. 48 local authorities came together to take up the fight. Six of the local authorities launched court challenges against pre-paid water meters. A court ruled that there was no authority in the Water Services Act to cut off water without the protective hearing procedures that the use of a pre-paid meter with an automatic shut-off valve necessarily prevented. Parliament subsequently affirmed the court's decision by banning all water cut-offs, thereby outlawing the practice of pre-paid meters in the United Kingdom.

The CPP will be seeking a Coalition against Pre-paid Water Meters with other activists, Women's groups' labour unions, non-governmental organisations, and academics involved in the water issue to come together in struggle against this violation of a basic human right, the right to water.

Long Live Ghana!!!
Nii Armah Akomfrah
CPP Director of Communication
www.conventionpeoplesparty.org