Funds for water treatment wane, say officials

Unless the government releases more funds to rehabilitate and maintain water treatment facilities, the Ministry of Municipality and Public Works will not be able to meet the country’s potable water needs, say ministry officials. Local residents, meanwhile, continue to express frustration with regular water shortages. “These past three days were very hard for us, without clean water," said Baghdad resident Hamid Ahmed, 45." We couldn't even take showers." Bushra Juhi, 38, a resident of the capital’s low-income Huriya neighbourhood, said that potable water often got mixed with sewage, so that “we’re forced to buy bottled mineral water after we developed stomach diseases from drinking the potable water". “The quantity of potable water to be pumped next summer will not exceed 59 percent of the real need, if the same obstacles – like the lack of finances allocated to the ministry – continue,” said Ayad al-Safi, a ministry official in charge of technical affairs. “Electricity outages and fuel shortages will continue as they are." Al-Safi added: "The government has to deal seriously with the water sector because it’s just as important as the security sector.” The ministry’s 2005 annual report, issued last October, noted that some US $512 million had been allocated to the water sector in 2002. In 2005, however, only $186 million was set aside for the rehabilitation of old water-treatment plants and the construction of new ones. Al-Safi pointed out that only 20 percent of last year’s reduced funding was released to the public works ministry. “This isn’t enough to develop crumbling infrastructure,” he said. “The majority of government funds for rebuilding have been diverted to fund security programmes.” “Because of this, we can only produce 6.8 million cubic meters of the daily 9.6 million cubic meters needed for the whole of Iraq," al-Safi added. Officials complain that underinvestment, poor management and military conflict over the past 20 years have severely damaged the country’s infrastructure, while widespread looting after the US-led invasion in 2003 further weakened the capacity of water treatment facilities. Insurgents have also frequently targeted infrastructure around the country in a bid to destabilise the government, while numerous acts of sabotage have helped undermine reconstruction efforts.