During the Cabinet session held today, Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani directed a series of urgent measures to address the obstacles facing the provision of water to Basra Governorate, stressing the importance of accelerating field solutions to improve the water situation in the governorate. The government spokesman, Basem Al-Awadi, said in a press briefing after the session, “The Prime Minister directed the allocation of five billion dinars to maintain irrigation projects and complete the lining of the Basra Canal, in addition to allocating 13 billion dinars to maintain the side pumping and payment stations and clean the water sections.” Al-Awadi explained that the council decided to “organize a campaign to lift violations of water quotas in the governorates of Wasit, Dhi Qar, and Maysan, while granting a grace period to lake owners to market their fish products before beginning to address the conditions of these lakes.” In the electricity sector, Al-Awadi stated that “the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Electricity to hold accountable those who were negligent and transgressors of the national network, and to take steps to address the fluctuation of the current supplied to the public outfall conversion station in Dhi Qar.” Al-Awadi added that Al-Sudani stressed “the necessity of continuing to prevent the throwing of any waste in the Shatt al-Arab,” directing “to provide additional financial allocations to members of the Basra Water Project and Department, and to support the Water Departments and the Al-Bidaa Project in the governorate with the necessary mechanisms.” Al-Awadi added that the government “allocated sums to complete emergency maintenance work in the projects that supply Basra with raw water,” pointing out that “the directives included completing two seawater desalination projects and changing the critical section of the Basra Canal.” He pointed out that “Basra Governorate completed the electricity line linking the leakage basins at the Al-Aroo station, as part of efforts to improve the infrastructure of the water sector in the governorate.”