The Minister of Energy and Water in the interim government, Walid Fayyad, spoke during the session which was held on the sidelines of the “Fourth Arab Conference on Water” and was attended by ministers from Arab countries and expert specialists each explaining their country’s suffering in the water sector and the solutions they are working on to address it, and said, “Yesterday was a long day on water which we started with the opening of the Fourth Arab Conference on Water and we completed it in the 14th session of the Arab Ministerial Council on Water, where we handed over the chairmanship of the session to the Libyan Minister of Water Resources, and now we are in this session with brothers and colleagues to find out the most important objectives of this important conference and we will follow through with a session on The interrelationship of water, food and energy in light of water scarcity conditions in the Arab region.
And he continued: “From all of the above, I say that what distinguishes us from the rest of the regions is that we are sister countries that speak the same language and have similar customs and traditions. The League of Arab States This platform that brings us together periodically is a blessing for our countries and must be developed and sustained and its role in the service of our peoples and countries.In this regard, he stressed today during the opening session of the fourteenth session of the Arab Ministerial Council for Water to the great progress accomplished in the establishment of the Arab Center for Water Economic Studies, which will in the future be a place where joint Arab water strategies will be developed to achieve the goals that will be discussed today and tomorrow at this conference.”
He added: “If we talk specifically about water security in Lebanon, we find that although we do not have water shortages due to the intensity of rainfall resulting from the country’s geography and its location on the eastern front of the Mediterranean, the level of service is decreased significantly in the last three years due to the crisis.” The suffocating economy, the low price of the national currency and the high cost of energy up to more than 70% of the total cost per cubic meter, so the public institutions responsible for investment and water distribution are on the verge of financial collapse.
And he continued: “Today we are trying to carry out radical reform interventions, the most important of which are: the modification of the water consumption tariff, starting from the coverage of operating and maintenance costs and employee wages, up to the subsequent coverage investment costs, seeking to reduce the cost of energy by relying on renewable energy to operate refining, pumping and processing stations, by relying on natural springs, surface water, dams, gravity feed, relieving pressure on groundwater and the energy needed to power the pumping stations, as well as favoring the rehabilitation of networks in order to reduce technical waste, carry out campaigns to remove usurpations on the networks, activate collection, adopt meters and abandon fixed subscriptions by caliber.
He concluded: “We also try to adopt rational methods of drip irrigation and move away from drip irrigation. Use international donors during the transitional period to help fill gaps in the budgets of water investment institutions through donations and grants earmarked to cover operating and maintenance costs, spare parts and chemicals used in water sterilization. ” In addition to the construction of power lines dedicated to the service of strategic water systems that enjoy 24/24 power supply, with the aim of reducing dependence on very expensive electric generators, pending an improvement in the general electricity supply in Lebanon.
