Privatization of water: a Quebec company arouses discontent in Senegal

A Quebec company involved in the privatization of part of the drinking water in Senegal is the target of a major protest movement by citizens who oppose the prices deemed exorbitant and the numerous service cuts.

The Aquatech name is unfamiliar to most Quebecers. However, the company whose offices are located in Montreal and Longueuil does business with many municipalities throughout Quebec in terms of water management.

But in Senegal, its subsidiary does not go unnoticed.

“Aquatech is one of the best-known companies in Senegal today,” said Alioune Badara Kane, journalist for the Senegalese morning television program Kinkeliba broadcast on June 8, 2021.

“We lost everything”

In 2016, Aquatech won a contract for 10 years to manage boreholes in the rural regions of Thiès and Diourbel to supply water to 2 million Senegalese. Its activities started in 2018.

“After the arrival of Aquatech, the tariffs per cubic meter increased and they cut off free access to rural schools and clinics, explains to our Bureau of investigation Meera Karunananthan, professor of geography at Carleton University in Ottawa and water social justice specialist.

This was also the case for places of worship. “Money that could have been used elsewhere must now be used to pay for water […] the consequences of this water billing are enormous,” says Fatou Diouf, project coordinator for French-speaking Africa for the International Federation of Public Service Unions.

The money, generated by the management of the water which the local communities took care of before privatization, was reinvested directly in the community.

“We were building classrooms, we were even recruiting midwives and nurses…”, explains Moustapha Bassirou Gueye, coordinator of a group with an unequivocal name: Aquatech Get out.

“When Aquatech arrived, we lost everything,” he continues.

In a 2021 report by a private firm on behalf of the Senegalese government on the privatization of water carried out, we can moreover read that: “the income from the operation and management by private delegates do not benefit the actors and the local economy”. Aquatech is one of the four private delegates to whom the government has entrusted the operation of the water supply facilities.

There have also been outages due to broken equipment or unpaid maintenance or bills. “At home, we had a 20-day outage without any reaction from Aquatech,” said Mr. Gueye.

“There was a drop in access, as those who couldn’t pay were cut off. And that’s where people started to protest, ”explains Ms. Karunananthan, who went there in March 2022 accompanied by a UN rapporteur to hear people’s stories.

His visit and the struggle of the Senegalese are documented in the Quebec documentary series La course à l’or bleu, produced by Impact TV and which will air on Vrai starting July 18.

• Watch the documentary trailer The race for blue gold

“The privatization model is complex in Senegal, but we were above all trying to better understand the citizen experience,” explains director Sofi Langis, who accompanied Ms. Karunananthan to Senegal. In several villages, access to water has been modified following the arrival of private companies: increase in connection costs, inexplicably high monthly tariffs, issues of quality and quantity. And these issues threaten the safety, health and dignity of these people.”

Demonstrations were even repressed and ended in arrests.

“Many went to prison and were mistreated because of their claims, which were legitimate,” says Ms. Diouf. The protest movement continues today, says Mr. Gueye.

Mr. Gueye, for his part, received several summonses to the gendarmerie. “The population is just trying to recover their precious property,” he says.

Some villages have succeeded in evicting the company and regaining control of their borehole.

According to the evaluation report, in 2019, 17 villages in the area managed by Aquatech refused the presence of the company. In the eyes of Fatou Diouf, there is no doubt: Aquatech has created instability and impoverished the population.

Aquatech denies numerous allegations about its management of water supply facilities in Senegal, but acknowledges that it has received very bad press and that the framework for government reform was perhaps a little too “brutal”.

“It is not something that continues today”, specifies to our Investigation Office Vivien Nirascou, director of international operations at Helios Group, to which belongs Aquatech international (see box).

According to him, the company was not enriched by its activities in this country and would have even suffered losses of the order of 2 to 3 million dollars.

“The objective is not to make a profit there, but to be in balance and to improve the conditions of access to drinking water for the populations, he assures.

The hydraulic reform, which entrusted management to the private sector, was first carried out by the Senegalese government and the installations managed by Aquatech still belong to the State, he recalls. .

Mr. Nirascou adds that Aquatech employs between 200 and 250 Senegalese who thus have access to social benefits and that the company finances schools, mosques and community halls.

” Last resort “

The hydraulic reform evaluation report confirms that in 2019, there were 73 distribution stops for unpaid bills in particular.

“Obviously, as with any water company, this is not the ideal solution,” says Mr. Nirascou. Cutting is the last resort.

When accounts are not paid, he explains that there are reminders and discussions. The cuts occur after 6 or 12 months, he insists. But in some villages where the bills were not paid for “political issues or ill will”, he acknowledges that there were “massive cutback campaigns”.

He claims this is the practice all over the world, in any private water utility.

Rébecca Pétrin, Executive Director of Eau Secours, a Quebec organization that fights against the privatization of water, does not see it that way. “Water is a vital resource. You can’t tell someone ‘you don’t have money, you can’t pay, you don’t have water. This is not how we think of a common law. »

“When people can’t pay, we find solutions,” insists Mr. Nirascou. But when they don’t want to pay, we have to do something.”

The evaluation report also confirms price increases in the regions where Aquatech is present, ie 1% in Diourbel and 10% in Thiès.

However, Aquatech points out that it is the government that has set them since the reform.

One thing is certain, the perception of the company is very negative.

“The case of Aquatech in the Thiès region is the most illustrative of the state of rejection of certain delegates”, specifies the 2019 report. “The lowest level of satisfaction is recorded within the scope of Aquatech”, can -we read.

Mr. Nirascou attributes this situation to communication problems. People have misunderstood the difference between the mission and role of the state and those of Aquatech, he believes.

“Replacing an entire system with an operator was perhaps a little too brutal,” he adds.

According to Mr. Nirascou, the opposition is less strong than before but he recognizes that the company only manages a hundred boreholes out of the 265 boreholes initially planned. “The state is slow to retransfer the sites today and there is still resistance in one or two places […] and the small sites around, it’s a bit of a snowball,” he says.

On its Senegalese site, Aquatech emphasizes its 40 years of experience in water management and distribution, particularly in North America and internationally. It says it is present in 24 countries. Aquatech Senegal is 60% owned by Aquatech international services des eaux.

In Quebec, Aquatech claims to have service centers in 7 regions of the province. It manages and operates drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities.