PM launches $930m water strategy for Amman and Zarqa.
ZARQA – Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Saturday launched a $930-million strategy to increase households’ connectivity to the wastewater network in Amman and Zarqa, raising it from the current 80 per cent to 90 per cent by the year 2025.
The strategy entails the implementation of 21 projects including the construction of new wastewater treatment plants, the expansion and refurbishment of existing plants, and the installation of new sewage networks.
The Amman and Zarqa wastewater strategy, set to be fully executed in eight years, seeks to increase linkage to the wastewater network, while utilising wastewater as one of the Kingdom’s strategic water resources for constrained cultivations and industry.
Mulki stressed Jordan’s long experience and success in managing water resources due to its water scarcity, noting that the Kingdom now ranks among the world’s best countries in the water management sector.
Mulki commended the sector’s achievements in handling the major water challenges the country faces in light of the increasing demand for water and of the great influx of refugees into the Kingdom.
He noted that Jordan has been categorised among the poorest nations in terms of water availability across the globe.
The strategy, he said, will also help protect surface and underground water resources from pollution, improving the population‘s health and environmental conditions in the two governorates.
A variety of funding mechanisms will help finance the strategy’s 21 projects, according to the ministry, for which funding will come from the Treasury, as well as easy loans and grants from the US, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Germany and Britain.
Nasser noted that some projects were already under way, expressing the government’s appreciation for donor countries’ and agencies’ financial and technical support.