Water companies are taking us all for a ride

Campaigner and singer Feargal Sharkey has, once again, dressed down the privatised water companies.

Water companies: taking the p*ss

On social media, Sharkey said:

You’ll want to be sitting down for this bit. Water companies are currently £82.7 billion in debt, have paid themselves £85 billion in dividends, leak over a trillion of litres of water per year, dump sewage for almost 4 million hours per year, have been convicted of over 1,200 criminal acts since 1989 and an average of 35% of your bill goes on nothing but paying more interest and yet more dividends. And not a single company has ever lost their operating licence.

When the water companies were privatised in 1989 under Margaret Thatcher, they were debt free. Since then, they have accumulated £82.7 billion in debt, as Sharkey notes. At the same time, they have failed to invest in infrastructure to fix our dated sewage system. Instead, they dump sewage in our rivers and the ocean for millions of hours a year. And they haven’t just creamed cash rather than investing. Water companies sold off 35 reservoirs in just five years, making £26 million from flogging what were public assets.

On top of that, as Sharkey points out, a University of Greenwich study for We Own It found a “privatisation tax” of 35% on our water bills. In other words, we’re spending over one-third more than we need to every time we turn on the taps.

Privatisation: 140 years into the past

Water was brought into public ownership in the late 1800s. Even back then, people knew it was a natural monopoly and a daily essential for all humans. Selling it off just means one then rents it at higher cost.

Thatcher’s government and then the neoliberals in Labour, Reform and the Tories maintaining privatisation of water, have brought us 140 years into the past.

Sharkey is spot on to take down the polluting profiteers.

Featured image via the Canary