BOT: Neoliberal Way of Corporate Plunder;
Mobilize Local, Statewide and Countrywide
Movements to Throw Out BOT Projects.
During the quarter century
of neocolonialism that followed World War II, on account of the confluence of
several economic, political and ideological factors, imperialism allowed the direct
intervention of the state in the development of entrepreneurial activity by both
imperialist and comprador regimes leading to an increase in the role of public
sector in the economy. The setting up of public sector undertakings that
provided the essential infrastructures and social and economic overheads such
as roads, railways, ports, airports, etc., and social services such as
education, health, etc., and communications, energy, banking and so on for the
smooth functioning of corporate capital were carried out under the Keynesian umbrella that ensured the
accumulation of significant share of wealth in the state treasury through
progressive taxation and deficit financing. In several countries, along with the growth of
the so called welfare state, bourgeois governments increased their share in the
economy by nationalization of certain branches of industry. By pursuing a system of progressive taxation
the state also mobilized a significant share of national income to substantially
increase public expenditure. According to a World Bank estimate, as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product, central government expenditures in the so
called developing countries such as India rose from 15 percent in 1960 to
almost 33 percent by mid-eighties which started declining steeply thereafter.
In spite of this predominance of public
sector under Keynesianism, the essence of production relations remained
neocolonial as there were so many surreptitious ways of channeling surplus
value created by workers in to the pockets of MNCs and comprador bourgeoisie.
But this arrangement could not continue for
long. Progressive taxation by the state for running infrastructural projects
and public spending on social security and workers welfare had been a heavy
drain on the surplus value and therefore a diminution of corporate plunder or
the so called rate of capital accumulation. As a result, when the capital
accumulation process on account of its own
inherent contradictions confronted one of the severest crises in the seventies as
manifested through stagflation, taking
advantage of the setbacks suffered by the Left, finance capital everywhere
strived to bounce back with intensified vigour and reestablish its direct
domination over erstwhile public enterprises through a process of
denationalization, disinvestment and privatization together with a roll back
and downsizing of the state from infrastructure and social overheads.
Consequently, all strategic and key sectors including infrastructures which
were hitherto reserved for public sector in the name of national security and
people’s welfare have been opened up for penetration by corporate capital. To
speed up the process of downsizing of the state, taxation as a proportion of
GDP has been substantially reduced in the guise of incentives and stimulus
packages to speculative capital. For instance, in India, during the last five
budgets alone, as revealed by budget documents, the Manmohan government had
granted a tax exemption of almost Rs.22 lakh crores to corporates whose
accumulation of wealth in the neoliberal period primarily takes place in the
sphere of speculation rather than production. An important aspect of this
neoliberal strategy was that the infrastructure projects pertaining to roads,
ports, airports, etc. and public utilities are to be entrusted to corporate
capital as BOT (build, operate, transfer) schemes with the imposition of
appropriate user charges on the people.
Today the BOT projects have become one of the
most lucrative sources of corporate plunder by speculative finance capital at a
global level. Along with the complex set of financial devices that have been
developed in the sphere of stock and money markets for surplus value extraction
and thereby ballooning the financial
sphere, finance capital being divorced itself from production has identified
the BOT schemes as an ingenious form of corporate plunder. The blueprint for
this that fully favours corporate monopolies is already laid down by World Bank
in its guideline for infrastructural development. As such, every
infrastructural project, whether it is port, road, or bridge should henceforth
be on a public-private-partnership basis, the cost of which should be recovered
by the operating party from the people through the imposition of user fees or
toll collection. The government’s partnership involves the required land
acquisition and the provision of a certain percent of the estimated cost as
grant (at present, in the case of road
construction this grant component comes to 40 percent of the estimated
cost) in addition to the provision of
infrastructural facilities required for the construction of the project. The
remaining part of the cost should be born by the corporate monopoly for which
even public sector banks and development financial institutions are already placed
in the queue with immense funds on the basis of mere goodwill. After completion
of the project, the private party is free to own and operate the project for so
many years or decades collecting toll or user fees from the public. As
neoliberalism demands, the role of the government here apart from the initial
grant and provision of amenities will be that of a mere ‘facilitator’ of this
arrangement by providing the required facilities for building and necessary
police functions for the smooth operation of the project to the satisfaction of
the private party.
But this is only apparent. As the BOT schemes
everywhere have become an inexhaustible source of corporate wealth
accumulation, the corporate billionaires have themselves transformed into a BOT
lobby in respect of every infrastructural sphere. Corporate mafia, ruling class
politicians and bureaucrats have become the three poles of this unholy lobby.
Today right from the preparation of the project report of a scheme itself, the
BOT lobby manipulates everything. As a result, the cost of the project itself
will be inflated several times than its real cost and there will be an
oligopolistic collusion to keep out the lowest bidders at the outset. And the
public contribution or government grant for the project will also be on the
basis of this inflated cost. Often, this government grant, say 40 percent, may
itself be sufficient to build the project. In that case, the remaining 60
percent of the money (that too from various public sources) mobilized in the
name of the project can be diverted to other speculative spheres. Since the
toll collection as per the original and periodically renewed basis continue
indefinitely by the
corporate-politician-bureaucrat nexus with the firm backing of all the judiciary, executive and legislature
wings of the anti-people state, as already said, the BOT projects have become a
fabulous source of corporate plunder during these days. The fact of the matter
is that even with the existing resource mobilization efforts and without
imposing user charges or toll collection the government itself can complete
most of the infrastructure projects including roads, as was the case during the
erstwhile Keynesian period. Therefore, the BOT projects are to be understood as
part of the more vigorous and intensified plunder by speculative
finance capital under neoliberalism.
There is another gruesome aspect also. The
long term speculative interests of the BOT lobby also lies in relation to the
land that can be acquired in excess of the requirements of the concerned
project. The BOT lobby who themselves are also notorious “land developers” and real estate mafia are equally interested
in grabbing the land in surrounding and adjacent places by forcibly displacing
the marginalized sections like street vendors,
petty traders and even retail
merchants and all other oppressed sections from their habitat. For example, the
usual trend that can be seen when express high ways are constructed by
demolishing the existing roads is the devastation of vast number of retail
traders adjacent to old roads on the one hand,
and the emergence of
malls and supermarkets owned by corporate MNCs who are the BOT companies
themselves. Therefore, there is strong correlation between the insistence on
the part of comprador states for FDI in retail trade along with the
implementation of BOT roads. Along with this, public transport system also will
be systematically demolished, compelling even people at the lower income levels
to resort to private vehicles for transportation. This is definitely intended
to gallop the amount that is looted by the BOT lobby through toll collection.
To be precise, the BOT scheme which is at present eulogized by both the central
and state governments in India is not an isolated project but is inseparably
linked up with the whole process of neo-liberalization unleashed by corporate
capital using its executive board, the comprador Indian state. Those who are with
the people can never tolerate it even for a moment.
The anti-BOT struggle led by CPI (ML) in
Kerala should be evaluated in this perspective. Irrespective of their public
postures, even the CPI (M) leadership in Kerala, in spite of the opportunist
positions it local leaders take, are proponents of BOT as the only alternative
for road development. It is in this context that the UDF led by Congress leader
Ommen Chandy, the running dog of corporate mafia and BOT lobby, is trying to
impose the BOT scheme on Keralites in the most heinous way with the connivance
of all apologists of corporate capital. Over the past several decades, both the
UDF and LDF who have been successively ruling Kerala have done nothing in the
direction of strengthening public transport system in the state which is most
suitable for its habitat and topography. Most deplorable is the total neglect
of an electrified double railway line in North-South direction with adequate
number of trains at frequent intervals. Instead of it they were colluding with
the strengthening of private bus lobby and corporate road construction mafia by
systematically destroying the public transport system in Kerala. Today the
whole transportation problem including roads in Kerala can be settled only as
part of a people oriented, democratic transportation policy which is possible
only by resisting corporate capital and the whole neoliberal agenda. When the
anti-BOT led by CPI (ML) struggle is gathering momentum and people on a large
scale are coming forward and leading it, Ommen Chandy, the chief minister, true
to his class character is pursuing a carrot and stick policy of unleashing
police atrocities on CPI (ML) cadres on the hand, and utilizing the services of
time-tested NGO leaders to hijack the struggle and divert people to ‘attractive
rehabilitation packages’. But the chief minister has not yet succeeded in this
tactic and in the face of strong people’s resistance the toll collection is
still pending. What requires is an
urgent political initiative to arouse consciousness of the broad sections of
the people by exposing the true essence of the BOT scheme which shall enable them
to more clearly identify the perpetrators of the neocolonial, neoliberal regime.
This is indispensable for ensuring people’s incessant fighting unity and to
lead these struggles towards higher levels
This is not a question of
Kerala alone. Rather it is a serious question in all the states. The gravity of
the problem is intensifying day by day also. Already the people’s resentment
against this vast scale plunder is expressed through many spontaneous struggles
by them at many places. They are not getting mobilized in to major struggles as
the political parties leading governments or sharing power at centre and in the
states are getting their own share of this plunder and discourage any struggles
against them. In this situation, if a study of the various BOT projects in
different regions are made and people are mobilized major struggles can be
launched at local, state levels and a nationwide movement against BOT projects
and toll collection can be launched. The CPI(ML) calls on all party committees
to bring together all forces who outrightly reject neo-liberal policies,
mobilize the masses and launch struggles against this naked plunder.
K.N.Ramachandran,
General Secretary, CPI(ML).
Dated 19th
January,2012.
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