Consumer awareness campaign With regard to the report “Youths launch consumer awareness campaign” (Dec. 8), I would like to say that this is a very important initiative on the part of young people in the Kingdom. The campaign, which is primarily using Facebook to raise public awareness about the rights of the consumer, has adopted the slogan “Ask for a receipt”. Consumers are being told to ask for receipts for everything they buy and to call the Ministry of Commerce and Industry toll free number if they feel that they have been overcharged or that they have been wronged in any way by a business. This campaign is very important and should receive full coverage by the media. If consumers are aware of their rights they will not be cheated by greedy merchants. Abdulrahman Abdullah, Online response Falsified academic credentials I am writing with regard to the article “Ministry probes violations in appointing education directors” (Dec. 8). Apparently the director of an education office in the Eastern Province is being investigated as it was found that his academic credentials have been falsified. He was a graduate of a teachers college and was appointed to the post of director even though his “overall grade was low”. The appointment was based on “inaccurate information that was put in the electronic system to hide the low grade”. It is good that the truth has finally come to light and that the individual is being investigated. However, it does cause one to wonder how many more similar cases there are in the education ministry and in other government departments. From time to time we read of officials being found to have fake academic degrees, but then we never hear of what steps are being taken to make sure that such things do not happen again. Ibrahim Mohammad, Online response Maintaining the Kingdom's mosques The report “75,000 mosques in need of maintenance” (Dec. 8) is quite disturbing. Thousands of mosques in the Kingdom are poorly maintained, dirty and in need of repairs. Many of them do not have an imam or a muezzin, or if they do have an imam he is not always present. It appears that the Ministry of Islamic Affairs is unable to keep up with or even keep track of all the mosques that are being built, especially those constructed in remote locations. As a result the ministry is setting strict conditions for the construction of new mosques, such as demanding proof that there is no other mosque in the neighborhood. The first thing that should be done is to conduct a comprehensive survey of all the mosques that currently exist in the Kingdom, where they are located, who is responsible for them and what condition they are in. In this way the ministry will at least know the extent of the problem and will be able to calculate the cost of solving it. Omar Adnan, Online response __
