Coca Cola, Pepsi and Danone are drying up Mexico. The multinationals, in fact, enjoy special concessions for the exploitation of aquifers, but they are not adequately controlled, and moreover they pay negligible taxes for this, despite holding 82 percent of the market in terms of total sales. An environmental disaster, as well as a human one
Coca Cola, Pepsi and Danone are drying up Mexico. The multinationals, in fact, enjoy special concessions for the exploitation of aquifers, but they are not properly controlled, and moreover they pay negligible taxes for it, despite having 82 percent of the market in terms of total sales. An environmental disaster, as well as a human one.
This is complaint by Léo Heller, Special Rapporteur on the human right to drinking water and hygiene of the United Nations (UN), who presented a report in which 101 humanitarian organizations collaborated. As reported by local media, the report presented by Heller portrays a very serious and worsening situation, which is still there impoverishing Mexico of water and resources.
To cite one example, Coca Cola pays 2 thousand and 600 pesos for each of the 46 concessions for the abstraction of groundwater per year (a total, therefore, that it does not reach 120 thousand pesos), but only in 2007 made earnings for 32 billion and 500 million pesos. Even without knowing the exchange rate and purchasing power, the comparison appears rather disturbing.
Heller then explained that in the course of 2014 the mining industry exploited 437 million cubic meters of water, sufficient to meet the needs of the entire population of the Mexican states Baja California, Colima, Campeche and Nayarit during the same period. An unprecedented drying up, which tramples all human rights to drinking water.
And that's just a tip of a iceberg sad and very dangerous: mining companies enjoy incomparable tax privileges which gave them the opportunity to make the Nation's natural resources available for the benefit of very few.
Recent reforms have given the mining and energy sector a public utility character, making theexploration and resource extraction of interest to the Nation and public order, favoring these activities over any other.
For further information on the exploitation of water resources, read also:
- DRINKING WATER: 5 REASONS WHY WATER RESOURCES ARE DRAINING OUT
- COCA COLA CLOSES 3 FACTORIES IN INDIA, ALL WATER DRYED
Character of private utility, not of public interest, and of interest for multinationals, not for the nation, we correct it.
Roberta de carolis
