RESIDENTS of Jeddah have become experts on what is wrong with their city. They contend that they have the background to make such claims having experienced the downside of living here. Ahmed is one such resident who considers himself a one-man Municipality watchdog. He stumbled into this profession as a result of years and years of aggravation with the bureaucrats at the Jeddah Municipality. It was when the Municipality rejected his application to add another floor to his ground level villa years ago, while neighbors on all sides surrounded him with three and four-floor buildings, that his frustrations led him to evaluate Municipal inaction and inadequacy. I realize that his concerns are shared by many. “When the new mayor came on board, I had some hopes that things would change,” he said. “This man said the right things, and we were positive he would turn this city around. But sadly years have gone by, and what do you see? A jumbled mess of traffic jams and half-finished streets!” “Just look here,” he added, displaying a voluminous file of old press clippings related to the Municipality. Pointing to one of the clippings, he added, “Here it reports that the Municipality would punish violators caught dumping building material and rubbish onto vacant lots. Do you honestly see that happening?” “While they announced that they had managed to clear 75,000 cubic meters of such waste, don't they know that another 75,000 or more are being created daily by building contractors? Don't take my word for it. Drive around any neighborhood and see for yourself. And where are those inspectors out to enforce the law?” “And while the mayoralty anticipates that it would take them five years to complete this task, I can only add that this is wishful thinking. As long as there is no visible and practical application of the law, it will be a never-ending project just like our sewage system.” Ahmed continued, “And talking about the sewage system, here is another past report on the mayor's announcement of a seven billion riyal project that we will have to endure for the next five to seven years. The report came out six years ago. Where have the billions of riyals of the past gone? And now, they are digging up the roads of the entire city. Find me one stretch 50 meters long on any of our streets and roads that has not turned treacherous. They dig up the roads, lay in some pipes, and then expect Mother Nature to repave them. And when they do repave, it is apparently undertaken by some juveniles, not civil or road works engineers.” “And here is another past report on the Municipality's grand plans to turn the old Jeddah airport grounds into a world-class city. According to the report, the mayor had concluded an agreement with an American consultancy firm to design the multibillion-dollar project. The project includes educational institutions, hotels, residential apartments, recreational centers, conference halls, museums, mosques, playgrounds, government offices and a railway station. The project was to be carried out on a vast area of 12 million square meters. Do you see that happening?” “Why don't they just stick to the city they have on hand and fix it? They are more concerned with planting flowers on inaccessible roundabouts than allotting much needed parks and recreation areas in the different neighborhoods for the welfare of the residents.” Ahmed pulled out another press clip. “Just look at this one. According to this, the mayor announced that ‘an international team of experts is currently conducting a study on main Jeddah roads including the Corniche Road to make optimum use of them after resolving their shortcomings.' Seven years on and what do we have?” “I wonder what caused them then to conclude that Jeddah roads were inadequate to facilitate our traffic! They finally woke up? Just what have they been doing all these years? Any one of us could have told them that years ago. And then they went and hired an international team to study the reasons and figure out the inadequacy. And after spending who knows how much on this foreign study, they determined that 10 flyovers were needed to ease traffic,” Ahmed continued to vent. “What are all those foreign educated Saudi engineers in the Jeddah Municipality doing? What is their purpose? No mayor, regardless of how committed he is, will ever change the way things are run in that bureaucracy unless he is prepared to make some bold moves. Such as getting rid of inefficient bureaucrats.” Point well made, Ahmed. It doesn't take a study by foreign experts to tell us our city is in a mess, and how to go about fixing some of the wrongs. Ask anyone on the street, and most likely you'll get a qualified answer.
— The author can be reached at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter: @talmaeena
