The Jeddah mayoralty has broken the law by raising fees of SR166 million from various services and claiming these amounts are donations and not revenue, according to a report released by the Control and Investigation Bureau (CIB). The raising of fees can only take place under a Royal Order, said the CIB report. The money has been raised from various services including waste removal and charges on sewage contractors and health centers. The money raised has been paid into the mayoralty's donations account. The CIB report concludes that the decision taken by the mayoralty is illegal and violates directives. The amounts collected should be considered as revenue, not donations, because the mayoralty has used government assets to raise the money. The CIB report said the total non-specialist contributions received by the mayoralty stood at SR48 million, while the specialist contribution was SR119 million. Therefore, the total amount raised was SR166 million. The report said that the special section is allocated for receiving donations and gifts made to the Jeddah Mayoralty. A special account has been set aside for this at a bank. This money raised by the Jeddah mayoralty comes from a number of sources. Contractors that use the rain water network are obliged to pay certain amounts to the mayoralty. Also, the owners of sewage tanker trucks are forced to pay amounts to the mayoralty in return for allowing their tanker trucks to enter the Misk Lake (sewage lake) area. The owners of health centers licensed to check up and conduct tests on workers are also forced to pay amounts for every health certificate issued by the mayoralty. Fees are also raised from other areas, including advertisements and publicity, the garbage dump and tree week. Amounts are also collected from owners of buildings under construction in return for collecting building waste from the sites. The report said the mayoralty has been spending from this account to pay for wages and salaries of employees falling under the section, salaries and allowances of the mayoralty personnel, overtime, travel and secondment allowances, training of employees, consultation fees and expenditures for the sewage lake, the garbage dump, execution of the Gharnata Street wall and the Historical Area. The report said the CIB noticed that the mayoralty has, without any legal basis, forced owners of health centers to pay certain amounts in return for the mayoralty issuing and printing health certificate cards. The mayoralty then deposits these amounts in the donations account as contributions from the owners of these health centers. The Jeddah Mayor signed an agreement with the owners of the health centers, for them to pay SR80 in advance for every health card. The agreement said the amount is a contribution by the health centers and that they expressed their readiness to contribute to developing the technology for issuing of these cards. The CIB report said this is contrary to what should happen. The way the amount is paid indicates that it is a fee. The report, a copy of which Okaz has obtained, revealed that the owners of some of these centers filed a complaint with the Jeddah Mayor protesting the legality of imposing such fees. This is because they argue that there is no legal basis or receipts for it. By considering it a donation, mayoralty officials are breaking the law, said the owners in the report. The report said the mayoralty signed a cooperation agreement with sanitation contractors forcing them to pay one percent of the cost of the remaining stage of a project in return for benefiting from the mayoralty's utilities. The mayoralty would deposit these amounts in the donations account, when these were in fact fees meant to be allocated as revenue. The report added that the mayoralty also imposed fees on contractors and the private sector, allowing them to pump water into the floodwater and rainwater drainage network. The mayoralty gets SR1,000 for every day the contractor uses the network. These are also considered fees and not donations. The CIB report said the mayoralty collected amounts from the owners of land at the Old Airport Area in return for conducting special studies for possible development. A citizen would pay SR30 per square meter if the land he owns exceeds 10,000 square meters. These amounts were then also deposited in the special section account as donations or contributions and not revenue.
