Dirty waters: corruption infects global water services

From Manila to Milan, fraud, bribery and organized profiteering are rampant in the water sector says a new report by Transparency International (TI), a global non-profit aimed at exposing and preventing corruption.

The organization's annual corruption report, presented last week in Stockholm, reveals the financial and human costs of water corruption.

Hardest hit are the world's poorest, the report finds. In impoverished neighborhoods from Kenya to Honduras, residents pay unscrupulous water vendors and entrepreneurs ten to a hundred times the normal rate for access to water where municipal supplies fail. This price gouging makes the actual cost of water more expensive for the poorest in Nairobi than for the richest in London.

"Let me make a bold statement: corruption kills," said Håkan Tropp, contributor to of the study and chair of the Water Integrity Network (WIN), in a recent United Nations press conference. "To some of you it may sound very dramatic, but that is in fact the reality for millions of people around the world."

From the slums of Jakarta to the suburbs of Atlanta, the global report highlights the pervasive nature of water corruption - jeopardizing food supplies, hydroelectric facilities and sanitation services worldwide read more...