April – 12- 2019

His Excellency Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi held on Friday, the special assessment meeting on the torrents situation, reassuring the safety procedures taken for citizens and farmers protection and compensating them for their plantation losses, getting benefit from water exuberance.

His Excellency Prime Minister directed to continue field work, prioritizing general national benefit, following up and precise monitoring for torrents and floods' risk reduction.

His Excellency also decided to keep the torrents and floods' counter cell in a permanent meeting, updating citizens daily on the exact data and numbers.

His Excellency commended all working concerned federal and local parties for their teamwork, patriotic spirit, and citizens' cooperation in reducing the damage size, reaffirming that citizen's life most important than properties.

His Excellency Prime Minister urged all officials to continue and exerting the efforts, demanding citizens for absolute collaboration with the officials, restricting to the recommendations for the saving lives and properties as a public benefit.

His Excellency Prime Minister assured his personal following-up around the clock for all procedures, reaffirming backup of the states' abilities in cooperation with the ministry of water resources for the success of its efforts.

The officials, governors and experts underscoring that the situation is safe and under control reaffirming that the work is continuing around the clock despite the huge amounts of water that Iraq has not seen like it for more than 35 years, Pointing out that the areas that require exceptional measures of prevention or evacuation are notified by the official authorities in sufficient time and preventive measures are ongoing to transfer as much water as possible, discharging it towards Lake Tharathar, the central marshes, the rest of the natural and industrial reservoirs to benefit from them.

The participants in the meeting pointed out that the dams, reservoirs, and gates have been exposed during the past decades to a lot of negligence and stop maintenance and irrigation of rivers after water scarcity and the repercussions of the financial crisis, Which requires preparation of a comprehensive plan to address the water file to avoid future flood problems and make maximum use of water.

The report of the Ministry of Water Resources was reviewed on the quantities of water flowing and expected and the reality of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, marshes, lakes, and dams, discuss solutions and actions taken, The ministers, governors, commanders of joint operations, Baghdad operations, popular mobilization, civil defense and military engineering explained the situation in all of Iraq, the level of rivers water, measures to strengthen dams, protection of residential and agricultural areas that have been exposed to flood risk, and the applied field steps to address them.

The meeting was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister for Energy, the Minister of Oil, the Minister of Water Resources, the Governors of Baghdad, Maysan, Salahuddin, Diyala, Deputy Governor of Wasit and the Nineveh Crisis Cell, and the head of the Secretariat of the Supreme Commission for the coordination of the provinces and officials of the water portfolio in the provinces, the undersecretaries of a number of ministries, leaders in the army, joint operations and Baghdad operations, the popular mobilization, military engineering, civil defense, dams operators and a number of experts and advisers.

Media Office of the Prime Minister
April – 12 - 2019