With only weeks to go before the Assembly Executive announces it's budget, one thing that is as clear as day is the parties in power have agreed to impose additional water charges on the householders of Northern Ireland.

Despite election 'promises' last year to oppose the introduction of water charges, all the parties in the Executive have decided to drive through the introduction of the hated charges. However, they have tried to disguise the charges by including them as an additional bill within the rates. This route was taken after it was recommended in the first of two reports from the so-called Independent Water Review Panel. This panel was appointed by Minister for Regional Development, Conor Murphy with each member paid $400 a day. Chair of the panel Paddy Hillyard, an academic at Queens University Belfast, was paid a staggering $500 a day to come up with proposals recommending people pay extra water charges on top of what we already pay in rates.

Last October after the report was published, Conor Murphy announced "The Executive accepted the case made by the report that without an uplift in what people currently contribute, other public services would be deprived of funding. We have concluded that these additional contributions should be phased in with domestic households paying two thirds of their liability in 2009/10 and full liability thereafter."

In other words the Executive is threatening that unless we pay additional water charges then they are going to make cuts in services. These politicians have some nerve telling people, who have paid for water through our rates for decades, that unless we meekly accept their unjustified water charges, we are then somehow responsible for them carrying out cuts in services. What really takes the biscuit is the fact that the Executive has already announced cuts of at least 3% in every government department and will also set up a special unit designed especially to identify where more cuts can be made!

The Socialist Party, unlike the Assembly parties, has consistently opposed the introduction of water charges and the privatisation of the service. We have played a leading role in building the We Won't Pay Campaign which has been responsible in forcing firstly the British Government and now the Northern Ireland Assembly to postpone water bills for three years. This has led to every household saving on average $678 in water charges. We will continue to build the We Won't Pay Campaign alongside activists in local communities right across the North.

But what is also clear is that working class and young people need a political voice which can fight in their common interests to challenge the right-wing policies of the sectarian parties in Stormont. Such a party could link up all the struggles of working people such as fighting low pay, privatisation of services, cuts, and water charges and put forward a clear socialist alternative to the free market, pro-big business agenda of the main parties.

A report issued in November “Governance of water supply service in Northern Ireland” by David Hall, Director of the Public Services International Research Unit, has added further damning evidence that privatisation of the water service is still on the agenda.

What is shown throughout the report is the misleading and deceitful behaviour of the Department for Regional Development and the Assembly Executive. On the 11th June, the Executive declared that “privatisation was not an option”, but the government-owned company (GoCo) Northern Ireland Water Ltd (NIWL) established last April, is actually specifically designed for privatisation.

The report clearly shows the purpose of a GoCo is to “establish an arms length relationship with government”. A GoCo is an “intermediate stage to privatisation” and is not designed to remain within the public sector. This is related to the amount of freedom a GoCo has to determine its operational and strategic development. The more separate from government and the closer to privatisation, the better a GoCo operates. So why does the Assembly Executive keep the water service as a GoCo if “privatisation has been ruled out”? The truth is that the parties in the Executive do not oppose privatisation of public services, but have been forced by public opposition to appear as though they are against selling off the water service. The threat of privatisation still looms over the water service.

NIWL is also criticised for its lack of transparency, with Hall stating that as a GoCo it must be subject to the Freedom of Information Act and routinely disclose information. From the 14th June to date there has been no publication of any kind in any format from NIWL.

The continuation of the NIWL as a GoCo could also be open to a legal challenge by private companies. Hall shows how EU procurement law could rule that a GoCo cannot provide a service without opening it up to private tenders. If the Assembly Executive was actually opposed to privatisation they would avoid this risk by bringing the water service fully back into public ownership and running it democratically.   

However, Hall falsely claims that there is no difference between private and publicly owned water services when it comes to efficiency. The big increase in water charges and the leaks in the infrastructure since water was fully privatised in Britain, prove that privatisation leads to less efficiency, not more.

The We Won’t Pay Campaign will continue to expose the privatisation agenda behind the Assembly’s plans for the water service and fight the introduction of water charges in whatever form they take.