Faisal, Emir of Makkah region and Chairman of the Sub-committee for Rainwater and Flood Drainage Project, said Sunday that officials will not compromise on the quality of work to fix the flooding problem and called for more efforts to accomplish the projects with skill and commitment to achieve top quality results, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Prince Khaled commented on the issue during a meeting with public- and private-sector officials to review a report on Al-Samer and Umm Al-Khair projects. Al-Mabani Company started work on these projects last month under a SR264 million contract that requires work to be completed within 197 days. The work is progressing according to plan, Al-Mabani Company officials said during the meeting. Prince Khaled held the review session with Hani Abu Ras, Jeddah Mayor; Ahmad Al-Saleem, Director General of Rainwater and Flood Drainage Project in Jeddah; Mazin Matar, Director General of AECOM in the Kingdom; and a number of officials from the Al-Mabani Company. Last week, Prince Khaled signed a contract with the Nesma Holding Company to execute within 110 days 12 projects worth over SR795 million to tackle flooding in Jeddah. The Sub-committee has approved 14 projects to address the flooding problem. The projects that are to be executed by Nesma will focus on creating tunnels to ensure water does not accumulate. Meanwhile, the second session of the second workshop for discussing permanent solutions for flooding in Jeddah was concluded on Sunday. All reports, views and suggestions from the workshop will be referred to AECOM – the project consultant – so it can select the best solutions at a reasonable cost before tendering them to international companies, officials said.
