The water shortage that Morocco is going through at the moment due to the drought that has raged in recent years and the waste of water resources, has led the country to take several urgent measures. Some have been implemented, others are still waiting.
To inform and sensitize citizens on the situation of water stress that our country is going through, the Ministry of Equipment and Water has launched a national campaign entitled ” Stop wasting water », in order to preserve the resources still available and guarantee an equitable distribution of water. But citizens who live in an apartment and have only one or two sinks for a whole family, are they the real water wasters?
Some have their share of responsibility, of course, but the answer is certainly no. Several sectors of activity consume millions of liters of water per month, such as car washes, hammams, or even large farmers, especially those whose activity revolves around “hydrovorous” crops such as avocado, watermelon and others.
In order to precisely control these wasters » and in light of the climatic and water challenges facing the Kingdom, the role of the water police has come to the surface. Supposed to ensure coordination with the judicial authority, this administrative body which fights against the illegal exploitation of water, has multiple powers which begin with the inspection, the drafting of the minutes, and end with the application penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment for offenders.
In this regard, environmental activists have encouraged the government to activate the mission of this water police in the fight against the illegal exploitation of the Kingdom’s water resources, threatened with disappearance in the years to come.
According to the same activists, the missions of the water police should not be limited to the surveillance of aquatic spaces, but should also extend to agricultural areas, major consumers of water, particularly in southern Morocco, and which have fact that many oases are on the verge of extinction.
But this administrative body, raises the same source, remained limited in its powers due to constraints linked in particular to the limited number of agents, the low budget allocated to this structure, or the absence of a clearly defined work strategy. , which contributed to obstruction » of his tasks in the field at the level of the examination of offenses and the drafting of minutes.
In this sense, Abderrahim El Kasiri, National Coordinator of the Moroccan Coalition for Climate and Sustainable Development, argued that ” the hydraulic basins, of which there are 10, are one of the greatest reforms that Morocco has experienced in recent decades. They ensure the trajectory of the water, from the source to the estuary “.
In a statement to MoroccoLatestNewsthe green activist felt that ” the water must be well managed at the level of these basins, by studying the quality and the distribution between agricultural activities”. But he still noted that the monitoring carried out by the basin water police remains limited.
” Human executives are few in number, and the power granted to this administrative body is limited, which makes it necessary to think about other solutions to activate the missions of the water police, by favoring the monitoring of groundwater more than the dams », he suggests.
In his analysis, the activist pointed out that at present we do not know exactly the number of wells exploited in Morocco, calling in this sense for coordination between the Ministry of the Interior and the Royal Gendarmerie to achieve to precise information concerning the exploiters of the water resources of the Kingdom.
But not only ! The National Coordinator of the Moroccan Coalition for Climate and Sustainable Development noted that “ more than 90% of the exploited wells are illegal, and must be closed, while meters must be placed in legal wells while ensuring payment of water bills”.
According to the activist, the water police should be only one actor among other institutional bodies, since water, which is a matter of the national security of the state, is one of the main sources of livelihood without forgetting that it is the main guarantor of economic and social services for the State “.
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