Amazing. We live in the 21st century and Jeddah still doesn’t have water piped into its houses through a standard waterworks system. We’re still sending trucks from central distribution centers to deliver water to separate underground cisterns for each building.
Water is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It is vital that we come up with solutions to this growing concern. People in Jeddah have been known to go for days without water, especially in the poorer southern regions of the city.
While we ponder the reasons why Jeddah and other places in the Kingdom still have water delivered to people’s homes in water trucks, the government seems to plug leaks in the system instead of addressing the core problem. For example, last summer’s water shortages in Jeddah were resolved temporarily by using a system of pre-paid water tickets. This was supposedly to prevent drivers from stealing away with water from the distribution centers and selling it at a marked-up price on the street, bought by wealthy locals who are more than willing to pay the premium to avoid the hassles and queues inside the center.
Did you know that there exist places in Jeddah that can’t have these trucks deliver water because the roads are so narrow that the tankers can’t travel on them? Instead they buy smaller containers (at higher unit prices, of course) and carry them home. Some residents have a hard time convincing drivers to deliver because they live too far away. These are problems that pre-paid water tickets do not solve.
This isn’t just a problem in Jeddah. Taif, too, suffers from shortages, as do other urban centers.
The best solution is the obvious one: We need a system of municipal water pipes and other infrastructure to ensure the pipes are amply supplied.
Jeddah is one of the Kingdom’s showcase cities. It is the gateway to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. The city receives visitors from all over the world. The kind of services the city provides to its residents and visitors is a reflection of the Kingdom as a whole and how it’s managed.
I know that talking about this problem may not solve it. Perhaps it’s better for those who can do something about this problem to imagine living without running water in their homes for days at a time. They should imagine having to fill up their bathtubs when the water is available to ensure a supply should the water be cut off again.
It is nice to build up a tourism industry in Saudi Arabia, but how about building up some modern municipal infrastructure, too?
