Water: Govt. Program to Focus on Water Efficiency, Seawater Desalination (Minister)

Rabat – The government program in the sector of water will focus on water efficiency and seawater desalination, with a view to addressing the water deficit and future challenges, said Tuesday the minister of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka.

Thanks to a proactive and long-term water policy, based on ambitious planning and programs and backed by appropriate legal and institutional framework to ensure the necessary conditions for a sustainable management of water resources, Morocco now has a large number of hydraulic installations and structures, including 149 large dams with a reservoir of over 19 billion m3 and 9 seawater desalination stations with a capacity of 147 million m3 per year, in addition to thousands of wells for the exploitation of groundwater, underlined Baraka at the House of Advisors (upper house).

Despite the achievements made, which have enabled the Kingdom to have a privileged place on a global scale in the area of water, the sector still suffers from some deficits, as mentioned in the new development model, he noted.

The minister pointed out that the government will address these issues, noting that the national water program constitutes, in this regard, a first step in the national water plan and whose execution will require a budget of 115 billion DH.

As part of the implementation of this program, the construction of 11 large dams out of the 20 programmed with a capacity of 4.25 million m3 per year was launched, with a budget of 15.5 billion dirhams, Baraka added.