“The Executive is paying millions of taxpayers money to private companies which have taken over important parts of the water service. This supply should be cut off and the creeping privatisation of the service should be reversed by terminating the Alpha and Omega PPP contracts. This would save millions and could be invested into the service instead of benefiting big business.
“People are already struggling to pay existing bills without having to worry about a new water bill. It is completely unacceptable for the Executive to impose this additional charge on people, especially since we already pay for water.
“If the Executive announces that water charges are to be introduced, we will determinedly campaign in the communities to build an organised ‘We Won’t Pay’ boycott of these charges.”
www.wewontpaycampaign.com
Contracting Out is a company headed by Sue Holmes, a senior consultant adviser to NI Water. This outsourcing company was awarded a contract by NI Water without any competition from other firms involving 130 days work by the firm at £775 a day, amounting to £100,000 of public money. On top of this, Holmes’ company had a 6% “success fee” for “savings identified” (not actual savings) of which she had claimed to have identified savings of £23m!
Urgent protests needed
The UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18 December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic failure that will live in infamy”. After years of preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such as Barak Obama and Wen Jinbao (and Gordon Brown) flew in, supposedly to break the deadlock. All of them accepted the urgency of reaching agreement. Unless global warming is limited to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the planet faces catastrophe. But no agreement was reached, let alone the framework for a binding international treaty, Cop15’s original aim. Backroom discussions between the US, China and a handful of neo-colonial states (Brazil, India, South Africa, etc) produced an ‘accord’ – a brief memo of vague aims and even vaguer pledges. Completely sidelined, the Cop15 assembly merely ‘noted’ the accord. Almost immediately, China’s representative, Su Wei, announced that, as it was not a formal UN agreement, China reserved the right to repudiate even the accord.