Prince Dr. Mansour Bin Mit'eb Bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Minister for Rural and Urban Affairs, on Monday launched several new projects here. Some of these are the eastern jungle project, Prince Majed Road-Bakhashab intersection and the new recycling station at the newly built dump at Al-Asla'a Valley. The Prince also toured the leading project exhibition at the municipality headquarters. He also inspected the latest achievements in 63 current bridge and tunnel projects, 18 of which are under construction, while the rest are either being designed (31 projects) or being negotiated with contractors (14 projects). Prince Dr. Mansour raised questions about the absence of small governorates affiliated to Jeddah from the ongoing projects and said these governorates should also have a share in the development projects. Prince Mansour hinted about the possibility of women participating in municipal elections pointing out that the participation of women will be decided on the basis of the results of the studies being conducted in this regard. Prince Mansour said the implementation of the monorail projects in cities is still under study. He pointed out that the mayoralties are directly supervising the progress in the municipal projects being carried out in different parts of the Kingdom warning that anyone found negligent in this regard will be held accountable. Adel Faqih, Mayor of Jeddah, pointed out that the eastern jungle project is close to the Sanitary Lake and will have some 200,000 trees that are known to ward off insects. “The project mainly aims to benefit from the lake water to make a wide green area that will later be used to provide amusement parks for the city,” Faqih said. He noted that the jungle would consume some 10,000 cubic meters of water everyday. The mayor added that the jungle project is part of a bigger project planned in the eastern part of Jeddah. Faqih said the Prince Majed Road-Bakhashab intersection has been assigned to a company for SR113 million. “This project will help ease traffic flow on Prince Majed Road which is one of the city's most important roads, connecting the north to the south,” he said. As for the recycling station, he pointed out that the project is built on an area of 4.5 square meters and can hold up to 25 million cubic meters of garbage. “This station will treat house and industrial wastes according to the latest technology in environmental protection,” the mayor said.
