El Opinador Compulsivo

Perú, país donde la actividad privada permite el acceso fácil a Internet, mientras el gobierno niega agua potable:

The water towers on the outskirts of Lima, Peru say "Water is health, care for it." For many residents of Villa El Salvador, one of the Peruvian capital's famous sprawling shanty towns, that admonishment is a cruel joke. Many have petitioned the government for water for decades, to no avail. One million of Lima's eight million citizens have no access to clean water.

The water monopoly -- which loses some 40% of its water through leaky pipes or in ways otherwise unaccounted for -- is only one of Peru's monuments to government incompetence. Peruvians were reminded of another last month when the communist-led teacher's union went on strike, paralyzing schools and triggering violence across the country. The union was protesting a law requiring that teachers be tested and held accountable for competency. An evaluation earlier this year found that one-third of teachers are deficient in reading comprehension and that nearly half cannot do basic math.

...Water they now buy from unsanitary tanker trucks costs 10 to 15 times more than piped water. In Guayaquil, Ecuador, a privatization carried out in 2001 has lowered the price of water by 90% for 275,000 poor people because their homes became connected to the formal network. Privately run water can also save thousands of lives, as has been the case around the developing world including in Argentina, where child mortality dropped by 26% in the poorest areas that privatized water.