A word from Director-General Eng. Monther Shoblaq on the founding of CMWU in 1995 and its development journey, with funding reaching about $250 million.
The Director-General's Word..
Eng. Monther Shoblaq.
The idea of establishing CMWU was born in 1995, during a meeting bringing together Palestinian water experts and academics at Birzeit University, to become the first professional national institution bringing together all the water and sanitation departments in the Strip's municipalities, within four water utilities, three of them in the West Bank and one in Gaza, and the year 2000 marked the Utility's birth certificate, when the memorandum of understanding signed by the mayors of the Gaza Strip's municipalities was adopted.
There is no doubt that the last five years have marked a title of distinction in the Utility's journey, through applying its administrative, financial, and technical system, and I participated in preparing all the founding and organizing documents for the Utility's work, under the conscious management of the Palestinian Water Authority, headed at the time by the late Eng. Nabil Al-Sharif.
We worked at the Utility since its launch amid a set of difficulties and challenges, perhaps the most prominent of which were the internal Palestinian disputes, donor institutions' reluctance to fulfill their commitments to fund the required investments, the repeated Israeli incursions and the comprehensive siege, which led to paralyzing the Utility's capabilities to develop its work and implement some of its projects, the low efficiency of the Gaza power plant, and the collapse of the economic situation, which led to a decline in the collection rate as a primary source for improving water services.
Despite this, the Utility was able to implement its development programs and reached a stage of efficiency in performance based on an integrated administrative and financial system, through the follow-up of its Board of Directors, headed by Dr. Majed Awni Abu Ramadan, on all stages of establishment, and the trust of humanitarian institutions and donor bodies, and the support of some national institutions and their sponsorship of the Utility as an idea and a project, in addition to the Utility's distinguished staff.
Our achievements speak for our work, as the Utility's various administrative levels were established, and the organization and activation of the administrative structure were developed, and the administrative and financial system was also developed and activated, in addition to maintaining a distinguished relationship with various external funding sources, as the volume of funding between 2005-2009 reached about $75 million and will reach, by 2013, about $250 million, with the number of partner institutions reaching about 25 donor institutions, and the Utility was also keen to maintain a distinguished partnership relationship with the relevant national institutions.
Our projects are a title for us, as 45 water wells were constructed in Gaza, and desalination units on some wells, and all the old conveyance lines were changed and water networks developed, and the continuous supply of drinking water with chlorine at a rate reaching about 100%, as well as maintaining water and sanitation facilities and ensuring their operational efficiency, and constructing a temporary sewage water treatment plant in the Al-Muharrarat area in Khan Younis, and developing the sewage water treatment plant for Rafah city, in addition to the effective management of the sewage basins for Beit Lahia, leading up to draining the random pond.
And we succeeded in managing the crisis of the Israeli war on the water sector at the end of December 2008, by mobilizing the funds necessary to rebuild what the war destroyed, worth $6 million, and repairing all the wells and water and sanitation lines and the treatment plant in Gaza city in record time and with high efficiency.
It must be acknowledged that the trust and support that distinguished the relationship between the Chairman and members of the Water Utility's Board of Directors and the Utility's General Administration at its various administrative and technical levels had a great role and was the primary motivator for the state of creativity, giving, and distinction that CMWU has reached, despite the complex political and economic circumstances.
In this context, the distinguished effort and performance of all those working at the Utility must be appreciated, from the colleagues at the main headquarters and branch offices, engineers, administrators, technicians, and workers.
And a message of thanks we direct to everyone who embraced the project of establishing the Utility by funding all its programs, especially the World Bank, UNICEF, the Relief Agency (UNRWA), the Red Cross, the Qatar Red Crescent, the Islamic Development Bank, the Turkish Red Crescent, the European Union, the German Development Institution (KfW), the French Development Agency (AFD), and many international civil institutions.
