Shareholders in the UK’s nine privatised water companies have made more than £6.5bn from dividends and interest in the past five years, according to new research.
Bosses of the nine companies were paid £58m in salary, bonuses, pensions and other benefits over the same five-year period, the GMB union found.
The nine firms paid out £1.4bn in dividends last year alone, according to the research.
Water companies have come in for heavy criticism for allowing billions of litres of water to leak every day as customers in parts of the country prepare for a hosepipe ban.
Consumer water bills in England and Wales have increased by 40 per cent above inflation since privatisation in 1989 according to a report by the National Audit Office.
GMB general secretary Tim Roache said: “Forking out billions to shareholders, while bills rocket and trillions of litres of water are wasted shows just how broken the system is.
“It's absurd that something we all depend on is in private hands delivering eye watering payouts instead of being run for the public good.”
Earlier this month, water regulator Ofwat said excessive pay and poor performance had damaged consumers’ trust in the industry.
Ofwat said firms must link senior executives’ pay to improved customer service, while companies that boost their profits by borrowing large amounts of money may have to share bumper rewards with customers.
They will also have to explain how any dividend payouts above 5 per cent will benefit customers and not just shareholders.
That came after he regulator last month criticised several firms for failing to prepare for cold weather which left thousands of customers without water for days.
Ofwat said 200,000 customers experienced disruption for four hours or more and 60,000 for at least twelve hours, with some experiencing far longer outages following the Beast from the East which brought snow and icy conditions to much of the UK earlier this year.
Chi Onwurah, shadow business minister, said: “Despite chronic underinvestment in our water system, water companies continue to pay out exorbitant shareholder dividends.
“Over the last eight years, water companies have received more from the Government in tax credits than they've actually paid in tax.
“Some have even paid more in dividends than they have made in profit, running up debts that are passed on to bill payers.
Both Ms Onwurah and the GMB support bringing water companies back into public ownership.
