Water projects in Morocco are to recieve a boost following the recent grant of US$61.8m by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) for various water projects to be carried out by ONEE, the National Office for Electricity and Drinking Water, Morocco. The loan agreements were signed between Abderrahim El Hafidi, General Manager of Onee, Jorg Dux, Head of Water Division, North Africa of KfW, and Markus Faschina, Director of KfW’s office in Morocco.
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Plans for the loan
The money lent to Onee will be used to implement Phase I of Component II of the Drinking Water Supply Programme for Small and Medium-sized Centres. More specifically, US$31.7 million will be used to strengthen the supply of drinking water in several localities in this North African country. Onee has given an estimation that this project will benefit 1.5 million people in Morocco.
The loan for water projects in Morocco will also be of help to the Settat Drinking Water Supply Programme aiming to increase production at the Daourat treatment plant in western Morocco which deals with water pumped into the reservoir of the Daourat Multipurpose Dam built on the Oum Errabiaa River. The Daourat Multipurpose Dam is also used to produce electricity and irrigate plantations in Settat province.
Improving the performance of the Daourat drinking water plant will provide water to 352,000 people in Settat province. Part of the funding from the KfW will also be used to implement the second phase of the programme entitled Sanitation of Small Centres III.
Another project that will be funded is the desalination project in Sidi Ifni which will also receive support from KfW. This project also includes the construction of six coastal boreholes for seawater pumping which will provide 225 litres of water per second. The water will be conveyed to the plant through a pipe with a diameter of between 250 and 500 mm over a distance of 4.4 km, and will then be treated by reverse osmosis in the desalination plant with a capacity of 100 litres per second.
