A government program promised basic services to more than 850,000 people in low-income neighborhoods, but funding to do it is a casualty of new austerity measures. Advocates of the projects say austerity could undo decades of work to bring running water, electricity and other services to the country’s neediest neighborhoods.
National laws aimed at redressing colonial imbalances reserve retail sectors, like that of brickmaking, for locals. But companies with outside investment, particularly from China, routinely flout the rules.