The Water Mandarins: The Contradictions of Urban Water Provision

Abstract

Billions of litres of water flow through the centre of Guayaquil each day, as the Rivers Daule and Babahoyo converge to form the River Guayas. Given this fact, it is perplexing to find that 35% of the inhabitants of the city do not have access to adequate and reliable water supplies and the whole city suffers from chronic absolute water shortages. In this and the next chapter, we shall explore the contradictions of urban water provision, which result in a sizeable part of the urban population, invariably the poorer end of the social spectrum, not having access to piped potable water. This situation, in turn, makes them easy victims of water speculators, the private water sellers that distribute water in non-serviced areas by means of tankers. In Guayaquil, approximately 400 tankers service a population of half a million people, or approximately 35% of the total urban population. These water-merchants buy water at a highly subsidized price (70 sucres/m3),while they sell it for up to 6,500 sucres/m3 (November 1993), a price of up to 300 times higher than that paid by low-volume consumers who receive water from the water company. We will also explore the strategies and structure of the water company, infrastructure and investment planning, price mechanisms and control structures in the light of these exclusionary and disempowering mechanisms of the existing water system. In short, we shall explore the contradictory dynamics of the ‘Water Mandarins’. The complex networks of those that hold control over the water tap, water infrastructure, and water distribution will be excavated in order to unearth the relations of power that infuse and eventually organize the intermittent flow of water in Guayaquil. Of course, analysing the changing dynamics of water supply in Guayaquil is like trying to hit a moving target. The field research for this book was completed in 1998. Since then, the public water company has awarded a concession to International Water Services, a Dutch-based subsidiary of Bechtel and Edison Spa, to operate, administer, and expand Guayaquil’s water and sewage services and infrastructure (see below).