Echorouk's Forum: Algerian Water Minister says 27 dams out of 59 are full of dirt

Algerian water minister Abdelmalek Sellal Sunday said 27 dams out of 59 in Algeria were not treated as they were supposed to be and a large part of them are still covered by dirt. The main cause is the fact that they were not studied by the national agency of dams in a good way, according to him.

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• 28 water purification plants to be set up in villages
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• The minister told Echorouk that 28 water purification plants are expected to be established in small villages but they will not be as big as the ones in the large cities like Algiers.
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• Cabinet members are politicians but “technocrats”
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• Sellal fiercely defended the performance of the cabinet and refused to consider the current government as a political or vulnerable.
• He indicated that the structure of the cabinet shows that it is a pure “technocratic” government. “A large number of ministers have doctoral degrees in different technical fields.”
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• No water crisis in Algiers for the next 50 years
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• The minister said Algiers will not suffer from water shortage in the next 50 years at least in view of diversity of water resources especially after the inauguration of water desalination plant.
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• Libya does not exploit Algeria’s underground water
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• Sellal mentioned that Libya exploits its underground water apart from the water used by Algeria in its east-southern areas. “Common under-ground water between Algeria, Libya and Tunisia are a strategic storage for water wealth. Algeria has the largest part of it with 700,000 square metres while Libya and Tunisia respectively share 250,000 and 80,000 square metres.”
• The minister indicated that the preliminary evaluation of Algeria’s share, according to experts, is estimated at 40,000 billion square metres out of 60,000 billion square metres of water.