RIYADH: The Shoura (Consultative) Council said Monday that women should be allowed to vote and run as candidates in future municipal elections. The Council agreed “that the Ministry of Rural and Municipal Affairs should take necessary measures to include female voters in municipal elections, in accordance with Islamic Shariah”, it said after a session held under the chairmanship of Abdullah Bin Muhammad Bin Ibrahim Aal Al-Sheikh. “This was a general recommendation,” said Mohammed Al-Muhanna, media spokesman for the Shoura Council. “It has nothing to do with the current elections but is rather a recommendation for future elections.” In March, authorities announced that half the seats in municipal councils would in future be elected. But they ruled out female candidates or voters. Local officials cited logistical difficulties in arranging sex-segregated polling stations. Hundreds of women around the Kingdom have joined an online campaign called Baladi, Arabic for “My Country”, in protest at their exclusion from the municipal elections. In April, dozens showed up at voting registration centers in Riyadh, Jeddah and in the Eastern Province to demand their right to vote but were turned down by officials. In Monday's session, Shoura members criticized the General Auditing Bureau (GAB) report on uncollected amounts from government authorities and institutions exceeding SR26 billion, which are considered to be funds that should be collected; uncollected funds at government authorities have reached SR21 billion. Members also disclosed that 555 projects worth more than SR31 billion during the report year 2007–08 were not executed, according to the Council's Financial Committee. Shoura members said government authorities are still dealing with the same problems relating to the accumulation of uncollected funds, a matter that comes under GAB jurisdiction. They stressed that the Ministry of Finance must specify their loans and that they should be issued only for executing projects. Members also called for coordination between the GAB and the Anti-Corruption Authority and stressed the importance for government authorities to develop the performance of their personnel in financial fields and not make use of employees not specialized in finance management. Members also called for laying down a precise and specific system for Saudi investments abroad. Muhammad Al-Quwaihiss, a Shoura member, said: “There are a number of Saudi companies, like SABIC and Saudi Telecommunications Company that have investments abroad and the GAB has shown that there are losses in the capital of these government corporations in which there is citizens' money.” Al-Quwaihiss said the Shoura Council should prevent the waste of public funds or drastic measures should be taken. “Either the GAB should improve its work immediately or it should be canceled,” he said. The Shoura Council also called on the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to prepare a regulation to impose an annual fee on empty plots of land in urban areas and complete the required measures and procedures. The Council also approved addressing the need for adding public parking lots in major cities to reduce crowding and traffic jams, and expediting measures to implement the Saudi Building Code while stressing implementation of conditions for areas prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and floods.
