Water Crisis Looms for Morocco’s Tangier Region as Dam Reserves Dwindle

Given the urgency of the situation, a meeting was held on December 11 between the Wali of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, Mohamed Mhidia, and the Director General of the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE), Abderrahim El Hafidi. The objective is to analyze the situation in order to find ways and means to avoid such difficulties in the future. Another broader meeting was held on December 12 to examine the expected dam filling rate and projects aimed at improving the drinking water supply in the cities of the region.

Abderrahim El Hafidi pointed out that in Tangier, the problem did not lie in the equipment but rather in the volume of available water resources and their management. For him, the deficit recorded in the April 9 and Ibn Battuta dams is higher than the regional average. The filling rate of the two dams reaches respectively 26% (i.e. -15%) and 25.5% (-60%).

Still in his approach to explain the situation and the urgency to find an effective solution, the ONEE director called for the mobilization of the efforts of all the structures in order to strengthen the supply of the city of Tangier. He also specified that the sustainable solution to this water shortage is to strengthen the supply of the Tangier water system from the Dar Khrofa and Kharroub dams in the province of Larache.

As for the city of Targuist, the official suggested connecting this network to that of Al Hoceima which, today, meets the conditions. At the level of the Ouezzane province, the ONEE president noted the completion of drinking water supply reinforcement projects for a budget of 70 million dirhams.