The domain of the 'Disconnected' : struggles against cost recovery mechanisms on water delivery - a study of the low income community of Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain

Fazel-Ellahi, Suraya

The domain of the 'Disconnected' : struggles against cost recovery mechanisms on water delivery - a study of the low income community of Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain

Master Thesis

2009

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Social Development

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

With the end of apartheid, South Africa underwent a political and economic transition, where democracy coincided with the country's insertion into the global political economy. Consequently, post-apartheid South Africa has come to mirror the global economic transition toward neo-liberalism. This shift has been impelled by international and national forces, with the ideological pervasiveness captured in national and local policy papers. The policy and empirical expressions of this ideology have emerged as particularly stark in South African water distribution, with the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry implementing intensified practices of cost-recovery to allow local government to become financially sustainable. At the conceptual level of the paper the 'naturalisation of water commodification' serves as the framework through which privatization, commercialisation and cost-recovery are examined. The policy of cost-recovery has been accompanied by harsh punitive measures, including water disconnection and eviction due to non-payment. This has been widely challenged with critics arguing that there exists a fundamental problem of affordability. This tension has come to be reflected within the policy environment, as punitive measures have been gradually replaced by pro-poor equity measures. However, these continue to be located within a larger cost-recovery framework.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-123).

Keywords

Development Studies

Reference:

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Masters

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