Commodified water, race and social justice in South Africa: A study of three privatisation experiences in post -apartheid South African municipalities, 1990--2000

This study, drawing on scholarly work in critical human geography, social theory, and political science, illuminates events at the cross-roads of local and global scales that are changing the complexion of localities. Drawing on the pioneering experiences of water privatisation in three South African towns over the period 1990--2000, this dissertation undertakes a detailed examination of the theory and practice of long-term water contracts, or public-private-partnerships. The study identifies, compares and maps changes in urban infrastructure delivery and changing local socio-political configurations since privatization. It demonstrates the meanings and impacts of water privatisation for urban life, justice and citizenship as well as the ways firms localize, modify and interpret the "rules of engagement" with municipalities. Pioneer privatisations provide a lens to understand the contradictory first years of urban transformation in post-apartheid South Africa.;The first section explores theories of state-market relationships, commodification, shifts in ANC urban policy and the landscape on which privatisation makes its imprint. The next section examines the contract's promises showing the new wave of privatisation is a hegemonic master-frame. It demonstrates how an international private urban services company converts a natural monopoly of spatial location into a business monopoly, becoming deeply embroiled in the totality of political-economic processes.;The final section shows how in the three towns the company-municipal relations have steadily deteriorated; predictions and assumptions behind cost savings have proved wrong. Contracts have locked municipalities into long-term inflexible arrangements that became progressively more onerous and expensive at a time when these towns were in steep socio-economic decline, facing declining central government grants and undergoing an uncertain transition. Risk burdens in the contract are unequally spread. Long-term contracts diminish the options that poverty-stricken and declining towns may exercise. Privatisation while not the direct and only cause of the problems in Eastern Cape towns contributes to the local state's collapse, destroying political trust and leaving services in disarray.;Water privatisation has not changed the racial geography of infrastructure and consumption; nor has it raised black per capita water consumption significantly above pre-apartheid levels. A commodified water service has meant extensive cutoffs, a shift to pre-paid metering or self-disconnection, the reduction of services for townships and permanent disconnections leading to violent tensions between councils and communities.