Tetouan: Imbalances surround the activity of the quarry mafia in “Zeinat”
Heba Press accompanies the renaissance
It appears, through the in-depth investigation carried out by the site “Heba Press” for several months, on the quarries located on the territory of the province of Tetouan, that they are very far from the environmental and health safety conditions supposed to be respected. the main concern of the authorities towards the neighboring inhabitants, not to mention the honor of the royal visits they benefit from. The City of the White Dove of King Mohammed VI and the special attention he has paid to it for a quarter of a century.
By simply viewing the satellite image via the “Google Map” application, those who follow regional and national affairs can understand what is the natural and geographical situation of the “Zeinat” area, located about 20 kilometers from the city center. The destruction and deterioration of environmental systems and habitats as well as the damage caused to road infrastructure have become the most prominent feature and link of the Persians due to the unjust and indiscriminate exploitation of the six quarries located on the periphery of National Road No. 2.
It is no secret that these quarries have tangible effects in the short and long term, of which the authorities are well aware, even though they authorized and delivered the operating documents before the period of electricity supply to the area. The matter was legal years ago because there were no electric poles in the places adjacent to the quarries, but today’s reality has become the opposite of what it was before and requires many precautionary measures to preserve life and social stability, which is a top priority for all successive governments.
Among the measures that must be adopted today before the axe falls on the head, there is the withdrawal of permits for the use of explosives near the mining sites and explosions related to electric current. Scientific studies have proven that the force of the explosion used in such quarries affects the normal path of the electric current and makes it go in the opposite direction, which can cause catastrophic disasters, especially on the neighboring dams that will inevitably be affected by the intensity of the explosions and their enormous power, because it is not unlikely that cracks will occur in the reinforced concrete walls, not to mention the reverse flow of the electric current, which in turn will drain water into the dam (Sharif Al-Idrissi Dam) and put people’s lives in danger, given that the state has allocated a huge budget worth billions to carry out such important and vital projects.
To delve deeper into this thorny issue, it should be emphasized that quarries are intended to extract sand and not stones. The reader may wonder why explosives are used to extract sand? Quite simply, the quarry mafia always authorizes sand quarries under the pretext that they are stone quarries, for one consideration only, namely that the price of stones per meter that the Ministry of the Interior extracts from quarry owners does not exceed (9 dirhams), while it is extracted in sand quarries (20 dirhams), and this. The operation is part of a camouflage by the authorities, as everyone knows, all the quarries of “Zeinat” are blocks of sand that look like mountains, so these operators do not need to use explosives as long as it is only to extract sand.
Here appear the enormous profits of the quarry mafia and their involvement in cover-up operations using explosives, so that the authorities believe that their use is necessary to blow up mountains, and in fact they are blocks of sand, as mentioned before.
The royal speech delivered on the occasion of the glorious Throne Day was clear and does not tolerate the empty interpretations that the quarry mafia could boast of. Then, the same recent royal speech is a clear message to all authorities involved in quarry issues. of the need to break with the past and correct these imbalances and their impact on drinking water, how can these quarries continue while their damage extends infinitely, polluting dams and valleys and violating nature in a scandalous manner, in particular. if we know that explosives contain the deadly and carcinogenic substance “amnium”, then where is the role of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which authorized the use of explosives after the operation? The electrical connection that the rural world experienced as part of the rural development initiatives carried out by His Majesty Mohammed VI immediately after he came to power in Morocco?
Based on this precise and exclusive data, considered an exception in the city of Tetouan only, the Ministry of the Interior must intervene to monitor what is happening inside these small mini-states, whose access to the world is forbidden to anyone due to the violations and thefts that exhaust the capacities of the State for the benefit of personalities from all over the city. We also confirm our return to this file in particular in our next investigation, which will address the legality of the “lime” quarries in the “Umtil” region and shed light on the legality of their activities.
