PRIVATISING WATER: BoTT AND HYDROPOLITICS IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

ABSTRACT

Access to water and sanitation services remains highly correlated to wealth and race in post-apartheid South Africa, with rural communities the most disadvantaged. The delivery of basic services such as water and electricity to communities denied these services under apartheid is one of the core platforms of the ANC government. Private sector participation in the water and sanitation sector has been proposed as one means of fulfilling the government's commitment to deliver water and sanitation services particularly to the rural poor. Public-private sector partnerships in rural water supply were initiated in four provinces in July 1997, when the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry awarded Build-operate-Train and Transfer (BoTT) management contracts to four specially created private sector consortia. The operation of BoTT is being developed as the preferred agency of water and sanitation services delivery in South Africa and is an unusual form of public-private partnership. In this paper, BoTT projects are evaluated on the basis of cost effectiveness and sustainability in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The BoTT projects are found to be more expensive than other forms of delivery and, it is argued, tend to undermine the role of rural local government in delivery.