Thursday, June 15, 2006

Morocco to spend $570m on rural drinking water

For many visitors, the question of drinking water is a vexed one. How come the Moroccans drink the tap water and the visitors all buy Sidi Ali ( bottled water)?

A recent spate of illness in Fez had many running for the bottles or boiling water first. However, as someone who drinks from the tap, it does not seem to be a problem.

Outside of the main cities drinking the water has always been a questionable proposition. But now the Moroccan government has decided to earmark $570m to the national programme to supply rural areas with drinking water in the 2006-2007 period. The project was presented by State Secretary in Charge of Water, Abdelkebir Zahoud on Tuesday (13 June). He said the funds would allow for 90 per cent of the rural population to have access to drinking water by the end of 2007

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1 comment:

Bill Day said...

This sounds like great news to me. One of the things the Peace Corps always stressed was the importance of educating people about water purification, particularly in order to reduce infant mortality in rural areas. Clean water is a foundation of public health, and should be available to everyone.