Moroccan minister announces plan to build Africa’s largest desalination plant

Morocco has announced plans to build a $1bn desalination plant in Casablanca capable of producing 300 million cubic metres of clean water a year.

The announcement of the plant, which would be the largest in Africa, was made yesterday by Abdelkader Amara, the country’s transport and logistics minister, in response to questions from MPs about the future water security of Morocco.

The MPs were concerned over a decline in the national dam filling rate, which presently stands at  45%, down from 54% in September 2019.

Amara added that the government had completed the construction of six dams in 2020 and had launched projects to build five more, in addition to the 14 that were already under construction across the country.

Image: Abdelkader Amara (ITF/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

Further reading:

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• Samsung Engineering leaves $3bn Saudi desalination scheme