HEALTH & PHARMACEUTICALS, PLC!!!

         In post after post I have went on about the ideological drive of this government to privatise everything in an attempt to recapitalise the corporate Mafia. This drive will change the way we live, will remove everything from public control into the hands of that corporate Mafia. It would appear that most people seem to think this means an array of businesses but don't connect this ideology to the health service. It's as if we are lulled into a sense of complacency believing that they can't privatise the health service. However we are just months away from having our National Health Service privatised for ever. The government's Health and Social Care Bill, if passed in to law, will mean the end of our free care at the point of need, Health Service. Our National Health Service will be opened up to market place competition between the big corporate beasts that seek profit before anything else. It means that those parts of the Health Service that don't make a profit will fall by the wayside, services like long term caring treatment, care of the elderly etc..

        Sixty years of free health care when you need it, will have been wiped out by a piece of legislation pushed through by a bunch of public school millionaire thugs who are working in the best interests of their millionaire friends in the corporate world. Neither the Conservatives or the Lib Dems had the privatising of the National Health Service in their manifestos. Neither of these parties have a mandate to privatise the National Health Service. No matter how they dress this bill up, it will not change the facts on the ground, big business will control the health service if this becomes law. Corporate this and corporate that, will control the shape, direction and content of the health service, it will no longer be OUR National Health Service, it will Health and Pharmaceuticals PLC.

          If you in any way think you live in a democracy, then this must be wrong on all counts. The public never asked for nor wants a corporate health service. The public never voted on or for a corporate health service, but that is what you are going to get unless you stop this bill becoming law. This can only be stopped by mass protests and mass lobbying of MPs, by the trade unions getting behind the public and organising to stop this decimation of our National Health Service. Grass roots organisations should for the time being, abandon other causes and direct their abilities and efforts to stopping this corporate grab to turn our National Health Service into a billion pounds gravy train for the shareholding parasites. This bill will become law in just a few months and then it will be too late, the National Health Service will be no more. Three months is not a lot of time but it is all we have.

ann arky's home.

CORPORATE LAND GRAB.

       Time and time again we see our legislators, who are elected to protect assets that belong to the people, take those assets and hand them to the corporate world, gift wrapped. Councils across the country will soon see masses of valuable public assets disappears into the portfolio of the rich and greedy, with the public purse receiving as little as 40p for sites worth millions. This is thanks to the Scottish government having another look at a bill that ran out of time in the last parliamentary session. The cronies of the corporate world sitting in Holyrood never give up, if they can't do the bidding of their corporate masters in one session, then will try again in the next. This plundering of public assets is all part and parcel of the privatisation of everything and anything that is of value, part of the sustained attack on the ordinary people, making them totally dependent on the corporate world for everything from their education, libraries, public parks  to health and leisure. They are your assets, were you asked if you wanted some millionaires to have them for 40p?

We are better equipped to develope these site.

The following is an extract from, an article in the Scottish paper The Herald.

       "Land expert Andy Wightman said publicly owned property let on so called ultra-long-term leases – with more than 100 years still to run – could be sold to the leaseholders for a nominal sum. This would mean assets that councils hold on behalf of citizens and protect from redevelopment could be under threat.

      Mr Wightman, the author of Who Owns Scotland, and The Poor Had No Lawyers, said it would affect assets such as Waverley Market – now known as Princess Mall – in the heart of Edinburgh. It is publicly owned and shielded from development.

       The law-change could see the 1.68 acre site sold to the current leaseholder, former Rangers owner Sir David Murray, who would assume ownership for a nominal sum. What happens to the prime site will set a precedent that could affect many civic gems as about 9000 long leases are examined in Scotland.

         Mr Murray stands to get a £50million prime city centre site for less than 40p as a direct result of the planned law change being relaunched by the Scottish Government. the ultra-long-term leaseholds – some last 999 years – were introduced at the end of the 18th century to encourage industrialisation and are being modernised as they can pose legal problems for leaseholders in developing the sites.

         It is understood Mr Murray's Premier Property Group (PPG) bought the leasehold on Waverley Market in 2004 from developers who acquired it in 1982. PPG is thought to have paid £37m for the lease alone. The site brings in about £2m a year in rent from shops. The firm pays 1p a year rent to Edinburgh City Council. The nominal sale sum for Waverley would be based on the 1p rental deal struck with the original developer in 1982 and if it went ahead early after the law was changed the cost would be expected to be under 40p.---"

Contnue reading, HERE.

ann arky's home.

THE PRIVATISATION OF OUR HEALTH SERVICE.

        The privatisation of the National Health Service is steadily moving along. It is of course disguised as many things, from incompetence of management, inefficiency of all the staff and the service they give, and of course the big propaganda lie, that the corporate world could do it all much better and much cheaper. The fact that our health service probably rates with the best in the world, is never taken into account, we still have to move towards the American model. America, a country where there are over 46 million people who have no health cover what so ever.

       Our millionaire ConDem cabinet, of course will do everything in their power to see that the corporate world gets its greedy hands on all our public assets, and the Health Service is seen as a prize gem, where billions can be made. After all those who rule the corporate world are the friends and old school mates of our millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Corruption and Hypocrisy. So they will do what they can to help their friends, and besides, most of them will have a million or two invested in the various private healthcare companies across the globe.

        Reading the letters in The Guardian on line, recently, there were two that I thought threw a lot of light on the subject of the National Health Service privatisation, here they are.

Your report (11 November) that the management of Hinchingbrooke hospital will be taken over by the private company Circle Healthcare and that the government sees this as a solution for "cash-strapped NHS hospitals" like this one which "has accumulated debts of £40m" fails to question the economics behind this idea. Surely, as a service free to patients, an NHS hospital cannot make money or get into debt.

The 20 hospitals said to be struggling financially are short of cash because of the artificial constraints of the internal market initiated under John Major, much loved by New Labour and currently being converted towards full privatisation under the Con-Dem government. For 30 years our governments have told us to love the free market, but privatised public services are run under rigged markets to allow private companies to profit at the expense of taxpayers. Now the economic imbalances of the NHS's internal market are being used as propaganda in moving towards full privatisation of health on the disastrous American model, a real free market that favours the rich.

When will the media attack the gobbledegook economics of Cameron and Lansley? A free NHS has the amount of money the government decides to spend on it. Its hospitals do not get into "debt".
Name omitted. London

• It is perhaps little wonder Circle Healthcare was given the go-ahead to run the Hinchingbrooke hospital. The company recruited a former aide to health secretary Andrew Lansley as head of communications. Christina Lineen spent two years working for Lansley prior to him becoming health secretary. In addition, Conservative MP for Boston & Skegness Mark Simmonds, who was a minister when the healthcare reforms were drawn up, was paid £50,000 a year to work just 10 hours a month as "strategic adviser" to Circle Healthcare. These cases are of course not alone; members from all main parties have direct links to companies that will benefit from the increase in NHS privatisation. Our democracy is broken.
Name omitted. London

 ann arky's home.

WHO RUNS BRITAIN??

        There are those who say that the Monarch rules Britain, a constitutional Monarch, but she has to put her seal on parliament's work. Others say we are a representative democracy. We elect our representatives and they do our bidding. Well we have a monarch, that's for sure, our vomit media makes sure we are spewed over with stories of her, her family, all their side-kicks and their antics that we fund. As for a representative democracy, well they are certainly elected by a section of the public, though not all my any means, but do they represent us? The recent slashing of all social spending and selling off of all our public assets, against the loudly expressed wishes of that same public, lays the lie of it being a representative democracy. Just who are they representing?

         So who does runs Britain? Recent events are beginning to make that very clear indeed. The News of The World hacking episode with the alleged payments to police officers for information, the spectacle of all the political parties fawning at the feet of a newspaper empire, for fear of it destroying their reputation and their seat on the gravy-train, makes it obvious who sets the menu on the political table.

         It is obvious that if we are to answer honestly, who runs Britain, we have to say, a bunch of greedy morally depraved reporters, bent cops, a cabal of self-centred, power hungry, arrogant millionaire politicians and a greedy media mogul. What is more important is for whose benefit are they running the country? You'd be an idiot if you said, the people of Britain.

By John Hartfield.

       With three wars running, our social services being decimated, our health and education being privatised, unemployment rising and all our public assets being sold for a song to the corporate world, it is simple to work out for whose benefit they are running the country. Of course that could change, it all depends on the people.

ann arky's home.

DEMOCRACY vs MYTHOLOGY:

THE BATTLE IN SYNTAGMA SQUARE.

        I have continually spouted that the deficit reduction has nothing to do with deficit reduction. It is all to do with saving the banks and the bond markets from losing any of their illgotten assets and rescue them from their gambling excesses. The billionaire playboys gambled massively and lost, so now they want the ordinary people of the world to pay for their greed. Living standards will be slashed, social services will be decimated, unemployment will rise, pensions will be plundered and all public assets will be sold off at bargain prices to those very billionaire gamblers.

      All this is happening not because your government wants to destroy the social fabric of the nation, but because they are being dictated to by foreign billionaires and as they are in the pay of those billionaires they obey for fear of losing their own wealth, power and privileges. It is an army of occupation taking over all the decision making in their target countries.

      It is explained excellently in the following extract from STURDYBLOG. Please take the time to read the article in full and spread the details as widely as possible. This is your battle, it is not just something that is happening over there in some foreign land. It is here, it is our struggle, it is your and your kids future.

     "I have never been more desperate to explain and more hopeful for your understanding of any single fact than this: The protests in Greece concern all of you directly.

        What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939. The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and thorough. Private wealth interests are dictating policy to a sovereign nation, which is expressly and directly against its national interest. Ignore it at your peril. Say to yourselves, if you wish, that perhaps it will stop there. That perhaps the bailiffs will not go after the Portugal and Ireland next. And then Spain and the UK. But it is already beginning to happen. This is why you cannot afford to ignore these events.

      The powers that be have suggested that there is plenty to sell. Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel’s party, recently made the helpful suggestion that we should sell some of our islands to private buyers in order to pay the interest on these loans, which have been forced on us to stabilise financial institutions and a failed currency experiment. (Of course, it is not a coincidence that recent studies have shown immense reserves of natural gas under the Aegean sea).

       China has waded in, because it holds vast currency reserves and more than a third are in Euros. Sites of historical interest like the Acropolis could be made private. If we do not do as we are told, the explicit threat is that foreign and more responsible politicians will do it by force. Let’s make the Parthenon and the ancient Agora a Disney park, where badly paid locals dress like Plato or Socrates and play out the fantasies of the rich.---"

 

       We have to admit that the world at this moment in time is owned by gambling billionaires, they buy governments and plunder the planet. We can continue in this fashion and leave a future of deprivation and corporate fascism to our grandchildren, or we can orgainse in solidarity with all the ordinary people of the world and change the way our world is run. We can create a world based on needs, mutual aid and sustainability, we have the resources, we have the ability, all we are lacking is the will to start that change.

 ann arky's home.

       CAPITALISM OR JUSTICE? YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH.

       According to a recent article by the BBC, the World Bank is warning that food prices are close to pushing millions more into extreme poverty. Since June 2010 an additional 44 million more people have been pushed into poverty. The bank claims that a further 10% rise in food prices would push 10 million more below the extreme poverty line of $1.25 a day, while a 30% price increase in the price of staples could lead to 34 million more poor. It is estimated that at the moment there are about 1.2 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day. The bank also warns that the prices of wheat, corn and soya all rocketing.

      While this disaster is unfolding the so called “financial crisis” (gamblers and spivs gone bust) is still with us and will unfold over the next year or so with the possibility of chaos and civil disobedience on a massive scale. Greece, at the moment, has almost daily mass demonstrations in most of its cities, with a general strike planned for this month. Spain has the Squares in its large cities occupied, and every other country in Europe has demonstrations and more planned on a unified front. The real pain has still to hit.

      Meanwhile the IMF is hell bent on screwing the people of various countries, most of Europe included, by handing governments loans, Of course we all know that nothing the IMF or the European Central Bank does, helps to alleviate the poverty in the world. On the contrary, for their loans they demand “deficit reduction” which translated into ordinary speak, means, cut all social spending, privatise everything in sight and send the money to the busted banks and bond market.

       This is capitalism, a system where the parasites with the money gamble and con their way to greater wealth for their little club, and when the gamble doesn't pay off, then they turn to the ordinary people and plunder their assets, decimate their standard of living to ensure that the gamblers and spivs don't lose out for their greed.

      How much longer can we afford to allow such a system of greed and exploitation to decimate our world, a world that we will leave to our children and grandchildren. Do we leave them a future of poverty and greed, devoid of hope and opportunity, or do we leave them a world that will allow them to develop to their full potential, free from the fear of deprivation, a sustainable world that sees to the needs of all. The choice is ours!!!

ann arky's home.

THE ILLUSION OF DEFICIT REDUCTION!!!

        What you have to realise about the deficit reduction brigade, those millionaires that spout that deep cuts are necessary to reduce the deficit, is that the deficit reduction is not their real aim. The aim of the exercise is to accelerate a vast privatisation program. In there eyes, public assets could be earning their millionaire friends in the corporate world, billions of £s. Practically ever country in the world, China probably being the exception, runs its affairs with a deficit. The entire stinking capitalist system relies on debt to function, or should that be dysfunction, as that seems to be the only way the system runs. The system continually needs debt and fresh capital to fuel their greed driven dream of eternal growth. So the Banking sector has come up with this wonderful illusion, get rid of your deficit and everything in your garden will be rosy, we will all find ourselves in the promised land of milk and honey. Decimate your living standards now and for the foreseeable future and all will be well, and of course the banking sector will not lose any money inspite of all its greed driven dodgy gambling mistakes.

      Of course to get rid of your deficit, you have to sell off all your assets. So, the millionaire public school thugs under the guise of “your government”, lead by the Cameron/Clegg spivs, will hand all our public assets over to the corporate world in the biggest privatisation operation ever undertaken. Everything must go, libraries, museums, public parks, schools, canals, health and welfare, education, all social services, all to be handed over to the private sector to feed the greed of the corporate world. What you will be left with is a corporate society where everything is available, but at a price, good health care, good education, well stocked libraries and fascinating museums, but all at a price. Those who don't have the price, will you can just do without, we will have a society that gives the rich their every wish and the poor a selection of charities. A society designed especially for the corporate world to make loads of money and nothing else.

       Forget the cuts, fight to change society away from profit and greed and towards people's needs. We don't need to carry an army of pampered parasites on our backs, sucking us dry like a plague of leeches.

ann arky's home.

ELECTIONS, DEMOS, PETITIONS, TWITTER, --- WHAT NEXT??

    

The following short extract is from  ADBUSTERS.  The full article makes good reasding.

   

' ----Everywhere we look there are signs of moral decay, political corruption and fascistic tendencies. However, activists have not been passive. For decades, since the end of democracy in America first became undeniable, we have tried every tactic to avert catastrophe. We have voted, written letters, donated money, held signs, protested in marches, clicked links, signed petitions, tweeted websites, written books, taught classes, knitted sweaters, learned how to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed petty vandalism … All this has been for naught. Popular revolution remains the only reasonably viable tactic remaining.'

         This was written concerning America, but it could equally well apply to any Western country. We, here in the UK, could say exactly the same. The more we tweet/facebook, march, petition the further that democracy slips away. Millions marched to try to stop the illegal Iraq invasion but the UK spent 5 years destroying the infrastructure of that country and the US is still there. Since 2001 there has been innumerable demonstrations/marches and petitions to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, we are still there killing and being killed.

        Now we face savage cuts to our standard of living, the decimation of our NHS, the privatisation of the Universities, the rapid erosion of our education system and the slashing of any social benefits. All this is being done against the wishes of the people of this country, simply to save the bankers and bond merchants form losing some of their unearned wealth. Our millionaire public school thugs, sometimes know as the cabinet, know who there friends are, and it certainly isn't you and I.

       So do we continue tweeting/facebooking, marching, petitioning, demonstrating, writing letters, waving placards and every 4 or 5 years running out to vote in, another bunch of duplicitous smiling crooks and liars. Or do we finally take up the only road left open to us, if we want to change this stinking system of inequality and exploitation, a popular uprising of the ordinary people, not asking for change, but making those changes we want to see?

ann arky's home.

VICIOUS LIES FROM GREEDY, VICIOUS LIARS.

       As the well manicured twins from the millionaires’ club down at the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption go ahead with the financial world’s plans to decimate the living standards of the working class, they are still, without laughing, muttering that blatant lie “we are all in this together” You and I are looking at a massive rise in unemployment, savage cuts to social spending, cuts in benefits, a shattered education system, reduced pensions, working longer to to get that lousy pension, if you have a job at all, and on top of that they are now about to rip apart the health service and turn it into a market governed grouping of private enterprises, in other words the privatisation of our health service. They are about to create a society where if you want something you buy it, at a profit to some corporate body. Of course if you can’t afford it then you do without and that will apply to health, education and special needs plus a host of other things that a civilised society should provide. While we, the ordinary people, are supposed to take this, the friends of this millionaire cabinet are still laughing all the way to the bank. For example, last year a certain Mr Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s, faced the burden of austerity with an £8 million pay package, his previous year's earnings. Another of the millionaire cabinet’s friends who is in this with us is Marc Bolland of Marks & Spencer’s his contract could net him approximately £15 million for the following year's pay check. As you can see, we are all in this together.

        The most blatant lie about this whole affair is the fact that they keep repeating, “there is no alternative” what shit, and it is ideological shit at that. This is the biggest handover of public assets to the private sector that we have ever seen. You and I and any member of the working class know that we could create a society that would see to the needs of all our people, we know we have the ability, imagination and resources to create a society free from the profit motive, based on mutual aid and sustainability. We know we do not need that army of pampered, well manicured parasites that rip us off day and daily. We, the working class, are facing what is probably one of the biggest challenges that has arisen in capitalism, we now have the ability to organise across the whole of the European continent on an almost instantaneous basis. What is happening in this country is happening across Europe, it is a united attack by the financial institutions of corporate capitalism, it surely makes sense that we should respond with a united attack on those institutions that aim to destroy our already meagre standard of living. Local strikes, marches and demonstrations can be ignored and dealt with without too much trouble to the system. However a national general strike would be a different matter and much more difficult for the system to handle, a pan-European general strike would be impossible for the system to cope with, and would be our opportunity to restructure society to our aims based on that fair and universally desire, of a society free from the fear of deprivation and exploitation.

 

 

ann arky's home.

CORPORATE FASCISM.

Cartoon by Peter Brookes.

        The latest figures state that the UK economy shrunk by 0.5% in the last quarter. Everybody shakes their head and says, dreadful figures, but our millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, says it was all down to the snow and the government will not be blown of course and change its plans. Of course they won't change their plans, why should they? Is there still anybody out there who believes that these "fair cuts" have anything to do with the economy, the deficit, growth or any of the other crap these public school thugs spout? Whether the economy grows, shrinks or stands still, their “austerity cuts” plan will continue, that's because their grand plan is to transfer all public assets into private hands and cutting all social spending is their method. This means that everything you want or do will return a profit to some corporate body or other. Send your kids to the library, well only if you can afford it, take a walk in the forest, well not for long, as they are about to be sold off to those who can afford them, ie. the big corporations. After the implementation of the millionaire cabal's plans we will be a society of profit units or surplus to requirements. We will have no control on how our society is shaped, no redress against those in control, everything will be privately owned and run for profit.

       We have to see through the smoke and mirrors of this bunch of thuggish parasites, they are about to change our society beyond recognition and totally for the benefit of their millionaire friends, it is such a massive shift of power and that's why it is so difficult for some people to grasp. These changes are forever, as far as they are concerned, once we have lost control of all public assets the struggle to take them back could be long and brutal, but get them back we must, otherwise we will be living in a society of true corporate fascism.

ann arky's home.

CORPORATE HEALTH SERVICE!!!

         

       As all the establishment figures debate the NHS “reforms” all the arguments are around, too much, too fast and too deep. None of the notables entering the debate even hint at the real problem with these “reforms”. What is actually happening is the privatisation of the health service. GPs control the finance, they will have to select services from a variety of “providers” among these will be the big corporations, who no doubt will work hard at undercutting here and there, just to get their feet in the door, and then the usual corporate rip-off. Hospitals will be obliged to open their doors to private “providers” and those hospitals that don't make a profit will have no alternative but to close. Competing ambulance services all trying to make a profit, instead of one efficient ambulance service properly funded. The GPs will be bound to get what is normally called “best value for money”, after all they can't be seen to be wasting money by buying care from a dearer source when big brother corporate world is there offering a cheaper version. By the time of the next election there will be no NHS as we know it, it will be a complete free market affair similar to the American system. If you have the money you'll get the care you need, if you have good insurance, well you'll be OK. However if you fall into the category of the ordinary person and have a long term illness, well you'll simply be away down the list. After all what profit making concern wants a load of people that need expensive long term treatment, there's no profit in that. Perhaps the charities will help out. Welcome to 21 century Victorian Britain.

ann arky's home.

21st. CENTURY SLAVERY, UK STYLE.

      

        Every day it becomes more obvious the the ConDem millionaires coalition is nothing more than the unadulterated self interest of the millionaires club, a straight up front attempt to safeguard their unearned wealth by slashing the welfare state and allowing their other millionaire friends to offer the services at a price and a profit to them. Privatisation brought in under the guise of necessary “austerity cuts”. They know it is class war, isn't it about time we reacted accordingly? This cabal of millionaires are now not afraid to show their true colours, to hell with the pretence of “liberalism”, it is now in with the hatchet and carve everything up for privatisation. At the same time placing the blame on the last bunch of corrupt fraudsters, with their mantra, it was all their fault, while they gleefully go about attacking the living conditions of the working class.

         They will spout their favourite phrase, “deregulation” which will remove any form of community control and carve up even the most basic services to the poor and vulnerable, to allow their millionaire mates to step in and make a killing at our expense. What is on the cards for the working class is a society controlled by Group 4, Capita, etc. with the only guarantee being crap wages, no job security, longer working life, if you manage to get a job, and shit pensions. All this along with high unemployment decimated health service and shredded education system. There will of course always be the few charities struggling to do their best to help out in this Victorian society of deprivation.

          Another little trick they have up their sleeve is, if you have been unemployed for any length of time on job-seekers allowance, (in the midst of high unemployment) you will be “obliged” to do 30 hours manual labour a week, for free. It could be council work picking up litter or some other job that the council has to pay somebody to do. So I don't see the council employing people when they can force them to work for nothing. For those people with a little dignity and a belief that slavery went out some time ago, who decide not to demean themselves or take somebody else's paid job away, they will be hit with their benefit being stopped for three months, all £65 of it.

        This is the millionaires co-joined twins' “Big Society”, everything privatised, slavery for thousands and crap wages and conditions for the “lucky”. All this while the millionaires who dreamed up the plan laughing all the way to the bank, chuckling, “suckers”.

ann arky's home.

DEVELOPING WORLD FIRST,OUR TURN NOW!!!

    

        This was posted some time ago but I think it is worth repeating as it is more relevant now than ever before. As I keep spouting, the cuts are nothing to do with the "deficit" that is just the excuse. It is all to do with transferring public assets to the private corporate world. A look at history can often show you trends and directions and this trend of hiving off all public assets into the private sector has been going on for some time. It has created devastation in the Third World and now it is set to do likewise in the developed world. The so called "financial crisis" has allowed the big financial vultures to accelerate the process in the developed world. Be warned, it was the Third World first, now it is our turn!!

Extract from:    anarkismo

      Throughout the world, public services have been under attack for the past twenty years. Forming a central plank of the capitalist globalisation agenda, ‘privatisation’ and ‘competition’ are the seemingly unchallenged dogma of modern capitalism. The levels of privatisation which have taken place worldwide are absolutely mind-blowing. During the 1990s alone over $900 billion worth of public assets were transferred into private hands. Globally this agenda is pushed by the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The basic theory by which these bodies operate is that all decisions should be made on the basis of profitability alone. Economies in the so-called ‘developing’ world have been carved up under re-structuring deals called Structural Adjustment Programmes which have been like manna from heaven for international business. The World Bank website(1) , for example, “provides information on more than 9,000 privatisation transactions in developing countries from 1988 to 2003”. This information is presented as ‘revenue generating opportunities’ for international capital. The current phase of the WTO’s strategy for the imposition of its privatisation agenda is the General Agreement on Trade in Services – which looks to sell off such basic services as healthcare, education, housing, water supply, waste management etc. This strategy is driven not in the interest of the ordinary people of these countries but by the needs of international capital. As David Hartridge, Director, WTO Services Division put it quite succinctly: “Without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no services agreement and therefore perhaps no Uruguay Round and no WTO.” (2)

          This privatisation agenda has had disastrous consequences for many peoples and communities in the developing world. According to journalist John Pilger (3)  

        “The introduction of school fees where there was previously free education has driven many poor families to withdraw their children from school, while hospital fees have put basic health care beyond the reach of millions. Although they acknowledge the harm which privatisation has brought to poor communities in the Third World, the World Bank and IMF still insist on prescribing it as an economic model. Water privatisation is just one example. The World Bank notes that water in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince costs up to 10 times as much from the private sector as it does from the public supply, and that poor families in Mauritania now have to spend a fifth of their household income on water. Yet both the World Bank and the IMF continue to force water privatisation on developing countries. During 2000 alone, the IMF made water privatisation or full cost recovery a condition of loan agreements to 12 African countries. The World Bank has promised Ghana an extra $100 million in loans if it privatises its water supply.”

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