Minister for Public Works and Construction addresses Water Technology Seminar

The first draft of the National Water Strategy for the Maltese Islands is to be ready during the second half of 1999. With the publication of Legal Notice 200 of 1997, the Water Services Corporation has become the entity responsible for the entire water cycle and therefore has to formulate a national strategy for water for the Maltese Islands.

This strategy has to address various issues amongst which there is the continous improvement in the quality of potable water, a more cost-effective manner of using all the water sources, a more costomer-oriented corporation and the setting up of a regulator which would monitor both the product and the services given by the corporation. Meanwhile the Corporation has already started carrying out various tasks which have to be incorporated within this National Strategy.

Minister Charles Buhagiar said this while addressing a seminar organised by a local company on the use of KSB Pumps.

Minister Buhagiar said that in its efforts to reach an agreement with the European Union, Government will be insisting that due consideration be given to this important sector. Minister Buhagiar said that the last communication from the Commission of the Council stated that water management will be one of the environmental considerations taken into account. At the moment a loan of 15 million Ecus for the upgrading of the water sector is being discussed as part of the protocol with the E.U.