The failure of privatisation in Dar es Salaam

Dar es Salaam before dusk. Source: Wikipedia

In my last post I discussed how private vendors have responded to a dilapidated water network in Tanzania’s second city. In the days since I have done a bit more digging into the recent history of water reform in Dar es Salaam and the results are quite revealing. 

It appears that the failure of the piped network has not gone unnoticed. In the early 2000s it was recognised that fewer than 100 thousand households were connected in a city of 2.5 million people (Action Aid). The World Bank and IMF were pushing heavily for DAWASA (the management body at the time) to be superseded by a private utility. 

The outcome was that City Water took control in 2005 and a series of mass disconnections and price hikes ensued. Unprofitable areas of the city were handed over to NGOs and the consortium set about doing… well, not a lot as it happens. There were no improvements made to the piped supply, the water quality declined and the government saw none of the lease fee which had been agreed. In the same year as the contract began City Water's top three executives were branded ‘undesirable migrants’ and told to leave the country (see Guardian article). 

To take the above as illustrative of all privatisation efforts would be a step too far. But a story such as this certainly doesn't seem to cast a neoliberal approach in good light. As the Water Aid analysis concludes 'Governance cannot be substituted by a contract'.