The National Transformation Program 2020 set out by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs will address six strategic challenges to ensure cleanliness of cities and protection of environment, establish infrastructure facilities and fight corruption, said an official statement. "The program aims at improving rules and regulations as well as municipality-related business activities, enhancing municipality services and performance," said Municipal and Rural Affairs Minister Abdullatif Al-Asheikh while unveiling the program aimed at achieving transparency and fairness. The program aims at realizing continuous and balanced community development in order to improve people's quality of life, strengthening humanitarian dimension of cities and regions, and meeting the expectations of the Saudi leadership and people. "The program has set out seven strategic objectives to confront the six challenges to realize financial self-sufficiency, ensure continuous qualitative performance of institutions and provide quick and quality services to people," the minister told Okaz/Saudi Gazette. Providing a healthy living to people and realizing continuous and balanced community development are other major objectives, he said, adding that the program would focus on developing the department for land and property management and protecting government land. He said the program would ensure quick and efficient implementation of municipality projects and provision of state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities in cities. "The Municipality Transformation Program presents a number of initiatives to achieve its strategic objectives. We will set out a number of annual initiatives for the purpose and they will be implemented by municipal agencies," the minister explained. The program will address four pivotal issues. First, advanced town planning to improve the quality of life of people and achieve continuous and balanced development and improve management of land and reduce land related conflicts. This will include issuance of new national plans and regulations and development of construction strategy taking environmental, economic and social aspects into consideration. "The program aims at providing advanced transport systems and provide drastic solutions for traffic bottlenecks and achieve better coordination between various service providers and agencies to meet the requirements of growing population," the minister said. "These various agencies will be encouraged to work under a single roof to provide integrated services to citizens and residents and prevent recurrent road digging works that often damage the country's road systems and tarnish the image of its cities," Al-Asheikh said. Efforts will be made to ensure proper documentation of land and properties to lessen possible disputes and prevent encroachment on public and private lands. This will ensure protection of government and private properties and plots. It will encourage businessmen to invest in real estate, boost national economy and create more job opportunities for Saudis. The program aims to provide cities with the required infrastructure facilities to improve their efficiency and enhance welfare of the people through initiatives that would provide solutions based on national and international expertise and best practices. It will also prevent disruption of municipal projects and ensure their quick and qualitative implementation within a specific timeframe. The second focus of the program aims at developing municipal services, Al-Sheikh said. "The main thrust of this pivotal point will be to improve municipal services to issue licenses, promote cleanliness and strengthen the inspection regime to ensure quality of services," he added. The transformation program also aims at developing rules and regulations, achieving transparency and fighting corruption, ensuring the rule of law, improving performance of municipalities and promoting public awareness on improving cleanliness and protecting environment, he said.
