JEDDAH: Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Hussayen has denied allegations that the sewerage system played a major role in turning the flash flood in Jeddah on Nov. 25 into a disaster.
“It should be considered that the flood that hit Jeddah on that day carried 100 times as much water as the sewerage system could contain,” Al-Hussayen said while speaking with Turki Al-Dakheel in a special program on the Alarabiya TV channel on Friday. There was “a combination of factors” that caused the Jeddah flood in which more than 120 people were killed, the minister stressed.
“The sewerage system covers only 20 percent of the Jeddah city. The ministry is striving to cover more areas,” the minister said. He added that a company had been established by Jeddah municipality to revise the planning and construction of parts of the city known as “the undeveloped areas.”
He said the infrastructure development for sewerage in Jeddah was far from complete. “The focus is on areas of high population because their need is greater for the sewerage network.” The minister criticized the way the media handled the Jeddah crisis. He said it had given the impression that public money had been spent carelessly but this was not the case.
The ministry under him did not spend even a halala unnecessarily he said, making it clear that he or his ministry should not be held responsible for anything before he took over. He demanded the current investigation committee look into how money was spent earlier.
Denying charges that the ministry used to empty sewage into the sea, the minister said: “There are a number of large sewage recycling plants in Jeddah.” He added that the ministry has been allocated SR17 billion in the 2010 budget for the development of water and electricity projects. Arab News on Firday reported a Saudi businessman’s admission to the panel investigating the Jeddah flood disaster that his company had received full payment for a project overhauling part of the city’s sewerage system but did not complete the job.
According to earlier reports from the Ministry of Finance, the government had earmarked about SR6.6 billion for implementing an integrated sewerage network in Jeddah.
