The Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, which have just concluded, were marked, as with so many other editions, by a number of initial controversies. From water pollution to a lack of security, the complaints raised by Brazilian social movements were widely supported. Yet one complaint has remained largely under the radar, and it concerns the handover of Rio's public water supply to private hands.

Brazil's "interim" government, led by Michel Temer who succeeded Dilma Rousseff following the president's impeachment, signed — on behalf of the state of Rio de Janeiro, just a few weeks before the event began — an emergency loan to help finance the infrastructure for the 2016 Olympics, in particular a metro line connecting the various venues used during the event. The rescue plan was based on the sale of Rio's public water supply and sanitation company, the Companhia estadual de aguas e esgotos (Cedae).

Private-sector interest is entirely political

Part of Rio's water network had already been privatised in 2012 when, under a thirty-year concession, the company Foz agua 5 — a partner of the larger Odebrecht — took over water management. Odebrecht is a Brazilian engineering giant: infrastructure, energy and local development are just some of the sectors in which it operates. To cite one example of privatisation, in 2013 the famous Maracanã stadium passed into private hands, specifically to Odebrecht, following a renovation carried out, however, at the state's expense.

According to the Corporate Europe observatory — an organisation that documents the effects of lobbying on politics — the transfer of public water to a private giant should be read in political terms. In an interview conducted in December 2015 with Renato Cinco, head of the special commission on Rio de Janeiro's water crisis, he denounced "the intention of the majority party in Rio (Pmdb, ed.) to sell public companies in order to finance its own political activity". The choice fell on Odebrecht for a reason: according to the Brazilian newspaper Estadao, the company contributed two thirds of the party's revenues in 2013 (with the remaining portion covered by beverage companies).

In order to hand water over to private operators, the government declared a water emergency. According to the Guardian, the tactic followed a clear political pattern, since in a state of emergency a federal state is able to request loans in derogation of national legislation. Through the state of emergency, then, it was possible to finance a rescue plan.

Rio's water doesn't reach the favelas

Odebrecht is not free from legal troubles: during the election campaign for the governorship of Rio, the owner of Odebrecht ended up in prison owing to his connection to the Petrobras scandal. "Meanwhile," Cinco adds, "since they will not be able to recover the costs of the investment, the new entity holding Rio's water supply continues to receive public subsidies." Furthermore, "their contract does not provide for extending the network to the favelas": 16 per cent of the population in the western zone, where these are concentrated, has no access to drinking water.

Tim Harford wrote in the Financial Times that hosting the Olympics is like building a church for a single, magnificent wedding. The costly facilities are used at full capacity for only a brief period. While we wait to learn the financial results of the Brazilian Olympics, or how the facilities will be repurposed, we already know for whom the Rio Olympics were a truly profitable affair.