As a limited and threatened resource, and one which involves priority challenges, water must be preserved and its pricing should reflect the investment costs, as well as the operating and maintenance costs of the works... This is a reality to which the government no longer seems indifferent.
A strategic study on the cost of water in Morocco will soon be carried out by the Equipment Department which has just launched a call for tenders.
This study should first draw up an inventory and a diagnosis of the cost of water and of the tariff system. The study should first establish a critical analysis of previous studies on the cost of water and of the pricing applied by the sector in terms of mobilization and use. These previous studies had led to reforms and contributed to the evolution of the tariff system towards mechanisms reconciling social, financial, and economic efficiency goals. In any case, it is a requirement of the Ministry who wants to capitalize on what has been done so far. The Equipment Department also specifies “that the real cost of water mobilization is supposed to be estimated taking into account the full investment costs of all the components of the project (storage, treatment, of adduction…) as well as their renewal costs according to their lifespan and operation”. The study should also establish a change in the cost of water and propose ways to improve the tariff and collection system, the goal being to ensure more efficient, integrated, and sustainable management of water from the technical, economic, financial, social, and environmental standpoints. The idea is to ensure an adequate, fair, and clear distribution of the costs between the different uses and the actors.
The water pricing overhaul project is not new. It is proposed by the report on the New Development Model. This report is in favor of pricing that reflects the real value of the water resource and that encourages the rationalization of uses and the management of its scarcity. The report recommends gradually increasing tariffs for all users, including individuals and farmers, in order to ensure remuneration for mobilization services. The national Government would take direct responsibility for subsidizing “social” consumption brackets for low-income citizens. In the field of agriculture, the New Development Model deems it appropriate to set up incentive mechanisms for water saving through irrigation quotas that would be proportional to the agricultural area of farms.
Khadija MASMOUDI
