Minister of Energy and Public Utilities Ivan Collendavelloo is busy planting a peculiar time-bomb, and one that will be remembered as his most famous (or infamous) achievement. This is his raising of the water tariffs, imminent any day now. This is not the time-bomb. That is the CWA privatisation project that this tariff hike is a part of.

But Collendavelloo has a problem: he said that he wants to give the CWA to a private operator under an ‘affermage’ contract. The privatisation, he insists, will lead to investments and infrastructure improvements to an infamous CWA whose pipe network leaks up to half of the water destined for use. Mauritius is a special country: it’s water-stressed and yet witnesses deaths and bulging government shelters due to flooding. Privatisation seems a panacea to get out of this ludicrous situation. Now here is the problem: the crux of the case against the CWA is its outmoded and dysfunctional distribution network. But under an affermage contract – that Collendavelloo wants to sign – any company will simply take over the CWA administration – and bill collection – but won’t be investing in physical infrastructure. In other words, leaky pipes are the biggest problem at the CWA and it is precisely the problem that Collendavelloo’s privatisation will not be addressing. So what is the point, you may ask.

But Collendavelloo is intent on pushing on. After all, there is little else to show for his time in public life. So, he faces three riddles: he needs money to replace pipes since it will still be the government – and not the privatised CWA – that will still be paying for that. Next, he has attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of the 323,254 homes with water connections, unions and consumer associations by saying that privatisation won’t lead to higher water prices (at least in the short term, anyway) and concurrent with all this, needs to package the CWA’s complex water pricing system as an attractive investment to a future corporate partner. Collendavelloo’s answer to these riddles: jack up water prices now. It will give the CWA more cash to replace pipes, it will convince corporations that the CWA is making more money and hence a better bargain and lastly, since it will have been done before privatisation, nobody can accuse Collendavelloo of misleading anyone when he said that privatisation would not lead to increased water prices. This is Collendavelloo’s slippery tactic.

So what will this privatisation-without-a-point achieve at the end of the day? Nothing probably. But, in the short-term at least, it will allow Collendavelloo to boast of having done something other than hobnob with Sobrinho or organise Divali at the CEB.  By the time the time-bomb goes off and people realise that they are paying more for privatised water and being expected to foot the bill for replacing the pipes as well, and in turn start questioning what this ridiculous enterprise was all about, Collendavelloo’s party will be safely consigned to history and he himself reduced to ignominious obscurity. His 15 minutes of fame will prove quite costly.

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