Lima's Poorest Want Water Privatization

''We want water now!'' is the cry of the residents of the Peruvian capital's poorest neighborhoods, where they pay as much as 20 dollars for just five cubic meters of water brought by tanker trucks.

LIMA - Some of the residents of the Peruvian capital's poorest neighborhoods, united in the 'Frente de los Sin Agua' (People Without Water), are demanding the privatization of the potable water and sanitation services because they say the government has failed them.

Resident groups from Lima's Lomo de Corvina, Puente de Piedra and Huaycán districts took part in the last three weeks in marches in favor of privatizing water services, carrying signs bearing the slogan ''We want water now!''

They were convened by the Frente, led by Abel Cruz, a community leader in Puente de Piedra, where in many areas the homes have electricity, telephone and even cable television, but nobody has household potable water service. Everyone has to buy water from tanker trucks.

And the situation is worse in Lomo de Corvina -- an ''expansion'', as the neighborhoods that have emerged as a result of land invasions are known -- in the far southwest of Lima. The houses, most made from straw and lacking electricity, are scattered over the eastern slopes of a rock and sand mountain in the working class district of Villa El Salvador.

That is where Rosaura Dávila lives. The 38-year-old single mother of three works as a street vendor. Her house doesn't have potable water, and to prepare food, bathe, and wash clothes, every two days she buys a 100-liter (26.4 gallons) container of water for four soles (1.25 dollars).

At that price, more than 10 times more than what the fortunate residents of districts with household water pipeline pay, water for Dávila and her neighbors in Lomo de Corvina is a precious commodity that they consume with great care.

''The health conditions in the zones without water services are almost catastrophic: most of the tanker trucks are privately owned and there is no health monitoring of the water they transport. So there is an abundance of parasites, and the associated malnutrition. It is no surprise that infant mortality in those areas is double the average for the rest of the city,'' says pediatrician Irma Morales.

In Lima's urbanized middle class and poor neighborhoods, each family consumes an average of 15 to 20 cubic meters of water per month, and pays around eight dollars for it, according to sociologist Patricia Teullet. But in the extremely poor areas, families have to pay as much as 20 dollars a month for just five cubic meters, she said.

The demands for privatization, fuelled by the upcoming authorization of water service concessions in other Peruvian cities, are fiercely opposed by trade unions and consumer organizations in the areas with services in place. They fear massive layoffs and a hike in water rates.

Officials calculate an investment of 4.1 billion dollars is needed to provide potable water and sanitation services to the 19 percent of the country's urban households that lack these services.

According to Economy Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, ''in light of the lack of fiscal resources and the urgency of other social needs, the only rapid solution possible for this matter is to open the way for private investment.''

''In the 1990s, from 200 to 400 million dollars were invested in Peru annually in expanding water and drainage services, but now public investment in that sector is no more than 50 million, and there are no budgetary resources to augment that figure,'' Sergio Salinas, head of the National Superintendence of Sanitation Services and staunch defender of opening water service distribution to the private sector, acknowledged in a conversation with Tierramérica.

That proposal has come under fire from some centrist and left-leaning lawmakers, and from independent analysts like sociologist Edgar Quintalnilla, of the Instituto Peruano de Economía. He says the international experience with privatization of water services in Britain, South Africa, Argentina and Bolivia was negative, and led to increased rates. In the two Latin American countries cited, major protests emerged as a result.

The matter could be central to the campaigns for next year's general elections. Two pre-candidates for president, the ''neoliberal'' Kuczynski and the populist legislator Luis Guerrero, have announced that the core of their electoral campaigns will be the water privatization question -- Kuczynski in favor, and Guerrero against.

Guerrero announced the creation of the National Commission in Defense of Water and Life, which is organizing simultaneous marches in cities across Peru for June 3 to protest water privatization projects.

But in some areas that don't have potable water, many of the residents directly affected are mobilizing for the opposite side.

Residents from 10 settlements in the northern coastal city of Tumbes, paraded through the city center on May 23 carrying empty buckets and bottles in a demonstration they dubbed ''the march of the thirsty.''

Potable water and sanitation services in that city will be put up for bidding on July 11. Among the interested parties are a Chilean company, a Colombian company and four Peruvian firms associated with transnationals.

This year there will also be privatizations in Piura, near Tumbes, and in Huancayo, a central sierra city where there have been popular protests against the proposal.

According to Salinas of the National Superintendence of Sanitation Services, there will be concession bidding this year in two more cities, on the northern coast and in the central jungles.

* Abraham Lama is a Tierramérica contributor.