Who controls Ecuador's water?

Publication date: Friday 09 November 2007

It is a well kept secret that Bechtel won a contract to privatize the water in Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil, just months after the massive citizen protests that threw Bechtel out of Bolivia. In October 2000, a local Bechtel subsidiary, Interagua, signed a 30-year concession contract to run the water and sanitation services in Guayaquil. The privatization process was promoted by loans from the Inter-American Development Bank and a guarantee from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a World Bank agency. Now, more than six years later, the residents of Guayaquil are demanding damages from the company for water contamination, an end to water cut-offs, and a return to local, public control.