Leaders face disciplinary action over illegal wells and water holes

Agadir24

The General Inspectorate of Territorial Administration is preparing to submit detailed reports to the central administration regarding leaders involved in facilitating the exploitation of random wells and holes.

According to informed sources, the aforementioned reports included accurate information about the involvement of the concerned leaders in facilitating the drilling of random wells and unlicensed water holes in their territorial jurisdictions in a number of local communities.

The same sources confirmed that the inspectors used, in preparing their reports, critical data provided by the water police of the water basins in Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakech, to identify the territorial officials, especially the leaders involved in the spread of random wells.

According to the same sources, this data also implicated authorities, after monitoring a small number of licensed wells in territorial communities, compared to hundreds of drilling sites and water holes.

The same sources reported that the reports of the Interior Ministry inspectors monitored the strictness of the leaders in preventing farmers from digging wells, despite their fulfillment of all the required legal conditions, while it was found that they turned a blind eye to secret digging in the hotbeds of random construction in territorial communities, especially by the owners of illegal warehouses.

The same sources noted that the investigations conducted over the course of months aimed to verify suspicions of collusion between local officials and authority agents with communal advisors who own small drilling companies and rent equipment for this activity, which resulted in the widespread spread of unlicensed wells and water holes in certain areas.

The inspectors included in their reports data on suspicions of fraud in inspection reports prepared by leaders regarding the nature of the exploitation of licensed wells and water holes, after detecting a contradiction between them and other reports prepared by the water police, which may have been a reason for issuing disciplinary measures against them after the central administration reviewed the reports prepared by the General Inspectorate of Territorial Administration.

This comes at a time when a memorandum was previously issued by the Ministries of Interior and Equipment and Water urging the creation of committees at the level of prefectures and regions in order to conduct an inventory of all completed wells and water holes, in order to limit the phenomenon of the spread of wells and holes that are not equipped with the necessary safety measures, and to educate and sensitize citizens to the risks resulting from them.