By Ashley Karen
A new road and tunnel connection is being submitted for Morocco to link Marrakech with Ouarzazate. Also, the project would comprise the construction of roads and bridges.
The Mohammed VI Fund for Investment was founded in 2020 with an initial US$1.45 billion to spearhead the country’s COVID-19 recovery. The fund’s core license is to deliver local businesses and strategic infrastructure projects with long-term financing in the form of equity or quasi-equity.
It focuses its lending on high-potential small and medium-sized companies, facilitates the financing of commercially sustainable infrastructure work such as the proposed Tichka Tunnel and develops strategic sectors which can support economic recovery.
Constructing a Tichka Tunnel, often called the Marrakech-Ouarzazate Tunnel, has been open to debates since 1945 or so, but will be challenging, given the isolation of the region and the geology.
Tizi n’Tichka is a mountain pass connecting the southeast of Marrakesh to the city of Ouarzazat via the High Atlas Mountains – impressively beautiful but inhospitable. It lies above the great Marrakesh plains and is a gateway to the Sahara Desert.
According to a French geotechnical engineering specialist, Terrasol, which did a geological survey of alternative routes between 2004 and 2008, there are two options. Option A is a short tunnel with a gentle slope, whereas alternative option B has a much better geological context and enables building a tunnel with an intermediate decline.
Option A will cost approximately $684 million, is for a 5.5km tunnel and requires the development of 8.5km of roads and the construction of a bridge.
Option B – the preferred option – will cost about $988 million, is for a 10km tunnel and requires the development of 80km of roads and the construction of 10 bridges. It passes through Ourika, a town in the Al Haouz province in the Marrakech Tensift El Haouz region.
