A celebration of the start of operation of the Central Sewage Treatment Plant for Gaza and the Central Governorate east of Al-Bureij, attended by the Chairman of the Water Authority and the German side.
Celebrating the Start of Operation of the Central Sewage Treatment Plant for Gaza and the Central Governorate
Gaza / CMWU
CMWU announced the beginning of the operation phase of the Central Sewage Treatment Plant east of Al-Bureij camp, central Gaza Strip, which took place during a ceremony held at the plant's site this afternoon, under the patronage and in the presence of the Chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority His Excellency Minister Mazen Ghunaim, with the participation of CMWU's Chairman of the Board of Directors His Excellency Dr. Majed Abu Ramadan, the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany's government to the State of Palestine Mr. Christian Clages, the Director of the German Development Bank in Palestine Mr. David Konz, CMWU's Director-General Eng. Monther Shoblaq, CMWU's Deputy Directors-General Eng. Maher Al-Najjar, Eng. Omar Shatat, and Mr. Mamdouh Al-Ghazali, and the Director of the Central Gaza Sanitation Project Management Unit Eng. Fareed Ashour, in addition to Gaza Municipality's Mayor Dr. Yahya Al-Sarraj, the mayors of the Central Governorate's municipalities, and representatives of local and civil society organizations.
In his speech, Dr. Majed Abu Ramadan welcomed the attendees, praising the excellent cooperation and genuine partnership with the German side, which resulted in the completion of this project, one of the foremost strategic projects at the national level, relying on the latest technology in the treatment process, which mainly relies on providing electric power from the biogas produced by the treatment process, in addition to the solar power generation unit at the plant.
Dr. Majed Abu Ramadan also affirmed the importance of this project, which will end the environmental disaster in the Gaza Valley area by receiving quantities of sewage water coming from all areas of the Central Governorate and Gaza city, treating it safely, and re-pumping it into the Gaza Valley watercourse.
In turn, the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany's government Mr. Christian Clages expressed his happiness at being in the Gaza Strip today and participating in the ceremony announcing the plant's operation phase and the completion of this project, which is considered an important step to rehabilitate the water infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, which was significantly affected during previous wars, noting that he had visited this area several years ago and witnessed the scale of the environmental disaster present in Gaza Valley, which this project will work to solve during the coming period.
In this context, Mr. Christian affirmed that the German government will continue to support all projects that would upgrade the water and sanitation sector in Palestine.
The Chairman of the Water Authority His Excellency Eng. Mazen Ghunaim said that today's celebration of the start of operation of this project on the ground of the Gaza Strip comes in the context of a series of celebrations for implementing more great and successive achievements to develop and improve water and sanitation for the residents of the Gaza Strip, despite all the challenges and difficulties we are living through.
Today, with the completion of Phase One of this project, we announce the beginning of the final phase of cleaning Gaza Valley and restoring it to a clean nature reserve free of pollutants, as well as halting the continuous pollution of Gaza's sea, this sea that our people here have long dreamed of as their only outlet, and we can today see that the sea is gradually returning to its natural state.
Eng. Ghunaim added that with the end of 2020, and after completing more than ninety percent of the Water Authority's plan to avert the looming disaster in the Gaza Strip, we can say that the disaster is now behind us, and we are now working to complete the most important strategic project, which is constructing the Central Desalination Plant, in order to finally end the water problem during the coming years.
