Water problem: solutions from the Court of Auditors
In his speech in Parliament this Wednesday, January 15, 2025, the First President of the Court of Auditors, Zineb El Adaoui, focused on the management of the water sector.
El Adaoui welcomed the Kingdom’s proactive water policy since the 1960s (construction of large and small dams / PNAEPI 2020-2027 with DH143 billion), but pointed out the delays noted in certain large dam projects, “mainly due to market terminations.” . “Some major dam projects have been delayed compared to forecasts, particularly the M’dez and Targa Ou Madi dams”she remarked.
As a reminder, the total storage capacity of dams increased from 18.7 billion m³ in 2020 to 20.7 billion m³ in 2023 thanks to the commissioning of a number of dams whose construction began before the start of the program, in particular Todgha, Tiddas, Agdz dams and Fask.
With the current dam reserve not exceeding 29% at the end of December 2024, El Adaoui stressed the need to target dam construction projects to regions that benefit from heavy rainfall in order to avoid losses in water supply and maximize its exploitation, especially in the hydraulic ones Sebou, Loukkos, Bouregreg and Oum Er-Rbia basins.
The Court also called for accelerating the implementation of hydraulic basin interconnection projects as an innovative solution to alleviate water shortages in areas suffering from a reduction in their water resources and to reduce territorial disparities in the distribution of these resources. She also stressed the need to accelerate projects to mobilize unconventional resources (wastewater treatment, desalination, etc.).
The institution ultimately called for the modernization of collective irrigation networks and the promotion of local irrigation. In this area, the area equipped with local irrigation systems accounted for almost 50% of the irrigated area nationwide at the end of 2023, “taking into account the slowness of the internal equipment dynamics of agricultural lands within the framework of collective conversion projects to this irrigation system”. “.
