Kurdistan minister warns collapse of 15 unfinished water dams

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Agriculture Minister of the Kurdistan Region warned on Wednesday about the collapse of water dams whose construction had been halted recently.

In a press conference, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources Abdulsattar Majeed stated that due to the financial crisis, the construction of 15 water dams had been stopped.

He added that the dams face a possible threat of collapse if the projects remain unfinished.

“The work on most of them is 80 percent done,” Majeed said.

Recently, he met with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani and requested IQD 11 billion (US $9.3 million) to finish the water dams.

According to Majeed, the requested amount could complete eight medium-level water dams that currently remain unfinished.

Additionally, he stated that the ministry had recently opened two dams and would construct one more.

The Kurdistan Region currently possesses 17 water dams. Three of them were built before 2003 during the dictatorship government in Iraq while the rest were built by the KRG after the liberation of Iraq.

The KRG is constructing 20 more dams but, due to the financial crisis, the work on 15 of them had been halted.

The Minister noted that the process of building the other five dams has also been very slow.

Additionally, a foreign company aims to create two large water dams in the Kurdistan Region via long-term loans.

Majeed revealed that one of the dams has the capability to save 500 million cubic meters of water.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany