Mexico Poised to Back Water Privatization Bill

Mexican lawmakers are to vote on a bill that will permit the distribution and construction of water infrastructure by private companies

Two committees of Mexico's lower house approved a new water bill Wednesday, which will open the door to the privatization of the resource.

Lawmakers from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN) and the PRI associated Green Party (PVEM) of the joint Committee on Water and Sanitation, and Water Resources of the country's House of Representatives approved the General Water Bill unanimously.

However members of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Citizens Movement Party and Regeneration Movement Party (MORENA) boycotted the vote, walking out of the session. They requested for a delayment on the decision for March 10, but the request was rejected.

Although the legislators of the ruling coalition of PRI, PAN and PVEM affirm that the state will continue to guarantee the right to water services, opposition members call the Wednesday committee decision a step toward handing the resource over to private companies, and private interests such as the expansion of the energy extraction practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and industrial mining.

The Mexican daily, La Jornada, reports that if approved by the entire house, the legislation will benefit the controversial private construction company Grupo Higa, which has won multi-million dollar public works contracts from federal and state governments and which has also been wrapped up in a corruption scandals with cabinet members of Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto, including the president himself.

Source: Telesur

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