Jordanians will have to struggle with a “critical summer”
due to the dearth of rain and the subsequent low dam water storage.
To address this dire situation, a partial solution was to
ask Israel to supply the Kingdom with additional 8 million cubic meters of
water. After weeks of delay in response, the US administration and other
parties intervened to pressure the Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, to okay
the request. The Israeli leader was reportedly acting in a spirit of
retaliation amid a row with Jordan.
اضافة اعلان
To experience a situation like this should be alarming
enough to Jordan, which is on the top of the list of the world’s thirstiest
countries. It should force the country
to shift to emergency mode, to address the water crisis, whatever it takes, and
take greater control of a challenge as vital as
water security.
The list of reasons why we should give water security all
the attention it needs seems endless: In meagre rain seasons, dams will not
supply us with sufficient quantities and there is too much reliance on
underground aquifers; we extract twice the rate of water that can be renewed.
We can also blame much of the problem on the refugee influx, nature, population
increase, water loss, water theft, and others. It is understandable, of course,
that some of these factors are beyond planners’ control.
However, we need to start somewhere: Building more dams and
increasing the capacity of existing ones; pulling all strings available to
execute the
Red-Dead canal project, which will include water desalination; an iron-fist
policy against water thieves, mostly influential people, to eradicate the
phenomenon; better irrigation systems; reaching to the underground sandstone
layers, as a former minister suggests; etc. All are solutions that would
collectively respond to this strategic challenge that is threatening our very
existence.
A good start is to fight corruption in the water sector.
This week witnessed the referral of officials from the Ministry of Water and
Irrigation to the judiciary for charges of squandering public money on a water
project that is good for nothing. Ironically, the funds involved in the case,
JD15 million, equal the sum paid to build the largest dam in Jordan,
Al-Wihda,
in 2007, according to a fact sheet published by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
A source who served for decades in the public water sector
tells me that the most recent case, which was handled by the anti-corruption
commission, is only the tip of the iceberg. If the anti-graft agents dig
deeper, they would uncover shocking facts. If true, that would explain why the
country has failed over these decades to solve a problem that has escalated
this summer to the level of a natural disaster, as described by the
UNDP.
Because water security is interlaced with every aspect of
national security, and because our survival hinges on the availability of
strategically sufficient water resources, we need to prioritize and address
this challenge head on, starting with prosecuting the corrupt officials that
have contributed to cumulative series of failures, including those pertaining
to the water sector.
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