In South Africa, meanwhile, another 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid. Next Wednesday, South Africans hold national elections, and one issue -- and a powerful symbol of the continuing divide between rich whites and poor blacks -- is how to distribute water fairly. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Johannesburg.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ten years after it officially ended, the legacy of apartheid is starkly visible to Father Guido Bourgeois, who has ministered for 20 years in the sprawling Orange Farm township.(To Father Guido Bourgeois): Where do people get their water?
Father GUIDO BOURGEOIS: There's a tap about 500 meters over there.
DE SAM LAZARO: Impoverished settlements like these house millions of black citizens. Many must still get water from pipes far from their homes.
Meanwhile, in the white neighborhoods and suburbs of nearby Johannesburg, readily available water greens the country club lawns.
NELSON MANDELA: I share the feelings and the hopes and dreams of many South Africans.
DE SAM LAZARO: The postapartheid government of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress pledged to change things -- to bring basics like clean water to the have-nots. The head of that effort gives it a good report card.
MIKE MUELLER (Director, Department of Forestry and Water): If you look at South Africa 10 years ago, there [were] between 12 and 14 million people who didn't have access to any safe water supply. Since then I think we've made pretty considerable progress. There are now only 5 million people in South Africa without access to any safe water supply.DE SAM LAZARO: But South Africa's water supply story may be a microcosm of how slowly, sometimes painfully, life has improved for the 85 percent black majority.
Today, Orange Farm remains as poor as ever. But many homes now have their own water taps, symbols of better access. But the taps have come with meters, which, to many, is a symbol of betrayal. They've imposed new discipline and, for many, an added cost.In the apartheid days, black South Africans got few utility services. And many of those who did chose not to pay their bills as a protest against apartheid. Today a new law guarantees every household in South Africa a free monthly entitlement of about 1,500 gallons. Once that free allowance runs out, the water stops. Customers in Orange Farm must buy more credit to turn the tap back on.
(To Nellie Majola): When you put money in, it gives you more water?
NELLIE MAJOLA (Resident, Orange Farm Township): Yes.
DE SAM LAZARO: Nellie Majola says she uses water sparingly but still runs out almost every week
Ms. MAJOLA: It doesn't work properly for me, so it's not nice for me, and so far it doesn't give me nice water, it just cut. When I buy every day, every week I buy, buy, buy and it just cut.
DE SAM LAZARO: She said complaints to the water company have gone unheeded. On her small pension, she says, the three to four dollars each month for water is a real hardship. No one in her household of seven has a job. Unemployment in Orange Farm exceeds 40 percent.UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: This prepaid water is not right!
BRICKS MAKOLO (Community Activist): This is dividing the community; they don't trust each other. This is totally crime against humanity. When people were voting for the African National Congress in 1994, they thought that their lives would change from the oppression of apartheid.
LESEGO LEBUSO (Johannesburg Water Representative): The culture of nonpayment has contributed to a situation where people have generally just not paid for their water, for their services really. And so when you're introducing something like this and you're saying, "You know, after all these years when you've not been paying for your services, now you need to do so." So there is a level of misunderstanding: "Say, but I haven't done it all these years, so why now?" So there is a lot of education that has to be done as well.
Mr. MAKOLO: People who are rich are playing with water. They've got swimming pools; now when it's hot they're just sitting there, drinking wine, putting their legs in the water.
