New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall 2014 | Page 8

New Water Policy and Practice

was not particularly related to opposition
from trades unions and community groups
as was claimed. Rather it reflected a global
recognition that, contrary to initial expectations, water supply in third world cities was
too complex and demanding to provide a
large and profitable new market for multinational business (Budds and McGranahan
2003).

The fading of this threat to public
services left a void in the campaigning arsenal of some interest groups. The threat of
privatization had mobilized public service
unions at national and global levels and established alliances between them and other
campaign groups. Rather than declare victory and move on, there was an ongoing
effort to maintain relationships between developed world campaigners and third world
communities by presenting the water policy
of the South African government as one that
had been captured by neoliberal policies.
As an apparent consequence, opposition to
privatization morphed seamlessly into campaigns against “commodification”. In this
context, “commodifying” water was seen to
entail:

ed-for-water, weak billing, and political
interference); and in the process
• fostering the conditions for water
privatization”. (Bond 2010)

Even this expansive and fuzzy definition was not particularly helpful for campaigners in a South African context since,
rapidly following the establishment of a
formal municipal financial framework, the
post-1994 democratic government had regulated a “free basic water policy” which (to
the displeasure of some European countries
that were providing donor assistance to the
sector at the time) required all municipalities to provide a basic supply of potable water free to all households and for this to be
subsidized through higher tariffs for higher
consumption. To sustain the attack on perceived neo-liberalism, the critics, supported by academic activists such as Bond and
Dugard (2008) duly made a case that the
amount of water provided was inadequate
and that the means for enforcing the limit
was unconstitutional. This was rejected by
South Africa’s Constitutional Court, which
is widely regarded as a progressive trailblazer in the field of social rights (Constitutional
Court 2009).

• “highlighting its role mainly as an
“economic g