Madar (Tunis) - Tunisia on Friday, October 16 officially inaugurated the Sidi Abdelhamid seawater desalination plant in the governorate of Sousse, with a capacity of 50,000 cubic metres a day, the daily La Presse de Tunisie reported. Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries Minister Ezzeddine Ben Cheikh attended the ceremony.
The plant cost about 130.5 million dinars, funded from the state budget, including 115 million dinars for the facility itself. It is expected to serve around 3.1 million people in the governorates of Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia and Nabeul, as well as northern Sfax.
Abdelhamid Mnaja, chief executive of the national water utility SONEDE, told Diwan FM that the plant produces 600 litres per second around the clock and that its water meets Tunisian standards and World Health Organization guidelines. He said it should reduce the disruptions seen last year, when lower inflows to the Nebhana dam left a shortfall of 600 to 700 litres per second.
Launched in 2018, the project ran eight years behind schedule. The plant has been supplying the network since September 28, according to Tunisian media, but remains in a testing and technical acceptance phase, with its performance to be monitored for a year after provisional handover. Its capacity could later be doubled to 100,000 cubic metres a day.
At the ceremony, Ben Cheikh called for desalination to be part of a broader strategy that accounts for its environmental impact, alongside greater reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation and better maintenance of SONEDE's network to curb losses.
