The GMB union is continuing with its campaign to bring the water companies back into public ownership. 

Yesterday the GMB reported that an investigation undertaken by the water union had revealed the nine privatised water company shareholders have made more than £6.5 billion in just five years, with dividends worth £1.4 billion paid out in 2017 alone.

The figures come from a joint investigation into the accounts by GMB and Corporate Watch as part of GMB’s Take Back the Tap Campaign to bring England’s privatised water industry back into public ownership.

The figures show the average dividend and interest accrued for shareholders by each privatised water company in 2017 was £158 million.

On Tuesday the GMB reported that the CEOs of the nine privatised water company had received £58 million in salary, bonuses, pensions and other benefits over the past five years and that executive directors and senior management had been paid an average of £746,296 per person in 2017.

Last week the union responded to news of United Utilities’ imminent hosepipe ban by flagging up the fact more than 430 million litres are lost to leakage every day – the latest leakage figures for the utility show 439,200,000 litres of treated water are wasted each day.