About 20 residents gathered in a local mosque on Wednesday to protest lack of water and electricity in their district, despite having first complained to the Mayor's Office four years ago and more recently to the National Society for Human Rights. The complaint appears to hinge on the owner of the south Jeddah district of Al-Obhur being unwilling to demarcate the zone, tarmac its roads and provide public gardens, without which the Mayor's Office has said it will not provide the basic services requested, which also include sewers and telephone lines. “The site of the district is within regulations, and no violation has occurred warranting this four-year failure to provide basic services,” said local resident Abdullah Al-Harbi. “The people here bought land from the owner when there were no infrastructure services, but they expected the situation to improve soon after given that electricity points had already been set up in 2003, but they were never put into operation and reinforced concrete houses were never connected.” According to the complaint, which is in the name of 80 homeowners and their families, the owner of the area was willing to evacuate the zone as requested in order to allow mayoralty workers to move in, but when he was told it was on the condition that he provide public gardens and tarmac streets, he said he could not afford it. The residents' complaint to the Mayor's Office four years ago was reportedly passed on to the notary public but then returned to the mayoralty, where it remains. “When they finished building the local mosque we requested electricity from the municipality, but that was halted because they said only one request is permitted, and I had made two, for my house and for the mosque,” said Muhammad Al-Munee', another resident of Al-Obhur. “Neither of them has been connected yet.”
