ON THE WATER
NEELS BLOM: Water crisis is a manufactured tyranny of scarcity
There is nothing like a good crisis to galvanise entrepreneurs. Where there may have been a market before, they now perceive customers ready and anxious to fork out whatever it takes to make the crisis go away. Or so it seems in SA, where entrepreneurial anticipation is roughly in proportion to governmental inaction. Consider SA’s recurring water crisis. The private sector response to the sight of dried-up dams is to offer alternative sources of raw water on the assumption that more is possible. The result is a series of diluted emergency pop-ups, all making prices on the back of perceived scarcity. Pure rent seeking, say the statists, and they roll out more white monopoly capital drivel while business claims the state is derelict in its duty and gorges on the carcasses of failure.Instead, says Turton, the thinking should shift to a paradigm of abundance, which means water is never lost or wasted. It may be elsewhere or contaminated or delayed, and towns and countries may become des...
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