A census and sweeping operation of buildings threatening ruin in the Oriental region was launched on Monday in Oujda, during a meeting held at the headquarters of the wilaya.
The meeting was chaired by the Secretary of State for Housing, Adib Benbrahim, in the presence of the wali of the Oriental region, governor of the prefecture of Oujda-Angad, governors of the provinces of the region of the Oriental, the president of the Oriental Regional Council and the general director of the National Agency for Urban Renewal and Rehabilitation of Buildings Threatening Ruin (ANRUR).
The emphasis was placed on this occasion on the particular interest given to the problem of habitat threatening ruin, which is complex and multidimensional.
Buildings in danger of ruin constitute a threat to human lives, just as they mar the urban landscape, explained the speakers at the meeting, specifying that the census and sweeping operation in the Oriental, which will last four month, is part of a vast program carried out by the Agency at the national level, in accordance with the High Royal Instructions aimed at preserving human lives and improving the living environment of citizens.
This operation will make it possible to conduct the necessary technical expertise as well as contribute to the creation of a geographic and socio-economic database on these buildings and their inhabitants.
Opening the work of the meeting, the wali of the Oriental region, Khatib El Hebil, highlighted the importance of the efforts made to deal with the phenomenon of buildings threatening ruin which threatens the security of citizens and affects the fabric urban and the aesthetics of cities, noting that to remedy this, a global and integrated strategy based on proactivity and coordination between all parties concerned is required.
In this sense, he welcomed the role of ANRUR which has adopted this global approach since its creation in 2016, noting that the Agency’s vision for the period 2022-2026 will contribute to the achievement of a precise diagnosis of these buildings in the Oriental region and in the rest of the regions of the Kingdom.
In this same vein, the Secretary of State for Housing spoke of the growing challenges resulting from the exacerbation of this phenomenon, highlighting its economic and social consequences and the loss of human life that they can cause.
-He insisted in his intervention on the activation of conventions relating to old medinas, highlighting the central role of the National Agency and its proactive strategy 2022-2026, which aims to identify buildings at risk of collapse and to remedy it.
For her part, the Director General of ANRUR, Ms. Azhar Ktitou, noted the importance of establishing effective mechanisms for monitoring and controlling buildings threatening ruin, calling for the design of multiple intervention scenarios in the short, medium and long term in order to ensure global and sustainable treatment of this problem.
She indicated that the census and sweeping operation aims to identify the state of buildings and assess their dangerousness in the prefecture and the provinces of this region, in order to define appropriate intervention scenarios to treat these buildings in accordance with to law 94-12.
In their interventions, the governors of the provinces of the Oriental region, for their part, addressed the issue of buildings at risk of collapse while mentioning the legal and procedural constraints which hinder the effective treatment of this problem.
They thus underlined the need to intensify efforts between the different parties concerned, in particular the local authorities, the competent administrations and the judicial services in order to accelerate the process of demolition of these buildings and preserve the lives and security of citizens.
The meeting was marked by a presentation in which emphasis was placed on the objective of the census which is to identify buildings at risk of collapse which will subsequently be the subject of a detailed technical expertise.
It also focused on the expected results of this census and sweeping operation which will be carried out by a design office mandated for this purpose and which will concern some 6,500 buildings at risk of collapse throughout the region. ‘Oriental which is made up of a prefecture (Oujda-Angad) and seven provinces (Berkane, Nador, Jerada, Driouch, Taourirt, Guercif and Figuig) and includes 124 local authorities, including 28 urban.
