SAUDI ARABIA - July 16 - Separate Water Ministry.

The cabinet chaired by King Fahd endorses a recommendation by Prince Sultan, who is also chairman of the Ministerial Committee for Administrative Organisation, for the establishment of an independent ministry of water. The new ministry shall include all the administrations and bodies responsible for water which are currently functioning under the ministries of agriculture, municipal and rural affairs, as well as the water sectors affiliated to Al Ayn Al Azizyia and the water and sanitary drainage administration. All these administrations and departments would become branches of the new ministry, and new branches would be established in areas where there are no water and sanitary drainage departments. The basic tasks of the ministry are defined as follows:

(1) Supervise, run, monitor and organise the water sector and its facilities.
(2) Conduct studies on water to find out resources and water stock.
(3) Prepare a comprehensive national plan for water, defining the policies
relating to water, development of its resources, conservation and
rationalisation of consumption for various purposes.
(4) Work out an integrated programme aimed at generalising water and sanitary
drainage networks all over the Kingdom's cities, governorates and centres.
(5) Develop water policies and suggest necessary rules for the conservation of
(6) Reconsider water tariffs for all categories of beneficiaries.
(7) Work out an effective mechanism for the collection of water fees.
(8) Lay out an appropriate mechanism, framework and arrangements for the
private sector in order to invest in the water sector in terms of financing,
implementation, operation and maintenance.

The ministry is to assume the responsibility of granting licences for digging wells and determining their depth. A technical committee is to be formed to redistribute work force, projects, studies, plots, documents, facilities, financial allocations, possessions and others between the ministry and other bodies currently looking after water affairs and sanitary drainage. The ministry will reorganise the administrative structure of all the sectors affected by this decision in accordance with the project of the organisational administrative structure of the government bodies which is currently being carried out by a ministerial committee for administrative organisation. It will continue job privileges of those involved in operation and maintenance, including technicians, administrators, skilled and unskilled labourers working in sanitary drainage and water departments. These allowances to be unified in one ordinance by the Council of Civil Service. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) continues as an independent body to be administratively affiliated to the Ministry of Water, with the Minister of Water serving as a chairman of the Board Directors of the SWCC.