Residents of Jeddah will soon be able to track the progress of the city's projects through real-time timers that count elapsed and remaining time at actual worksites, Mayor Hani Abu Ras said on Tuesday. Ongoing projects in various parts of the city are progressing according to their schedule, the mayor said. “To ensure the public that the city's projects are progressing as planned, the mayoralty has established a real-time tracking system at worksites to show how much time is left to complete the projects,” the mayor said. The information presented on the real-time timers with start and end date and time of a project will be genuine, he said. Abu Ras made the comments at an Eid Al-Fitr gathering at the Regional Council's headquarters for its members, businessmen, members of the chamber of commerce and residents. As the holy month of Ramadan and the Eid break were over, residents in several parts of the city have complained that the garbage collection service is inadequate and that piles of uncollected trash are unsightly, smell bad and increase the presence of vermin and diseases. The mayor acknowledged that the mayoralty needs to do more to keep the city clean. Some residents found the event to be a good opportunity to express their dissatisfaction over the poor standard of some services. Work is now under way on an important project to reduce the water table in some districts. A team has already been assigned to reduce the level of underground water at Al-Ajaweed District, east of Jeddah, the mayor said. This week, a municipal team working on the project to combat dengue fever has detected two cases of the disease, he added. During the Eid gathering with the mayor, the residents addressed the issues of administrative corruption and bribes, traffic bottlenecks, natural disasters, variations in the marine environment and their impact on the soil of the coastal city. Residents also criticized the absence of the Eid festival this year; skyrocketing prices including rent for residential units; and the poor quality of roads, maintenance and the tourism industry. Muhammad Abu Dawood, a member of the Jeddah Regional Council who addressed the residents, made it clear that the group's role is limited to monitoring the mayoralty's services. He made the clarification as residents called on the Regional Council to have a well-defined role in solving residents' problems. Bassam Akhdar, Director of Media and Public Relations at the council, said 13 heads of regional councils across the country will soon meet in Riyadh to discuss the council system and propose new laws relating to them. He said participants will submit their proposals to the Council of Ministers and Experts Committee at the Shoura Council for review. Some existing laws have not been changed since they were established more than 35 years ago, he added. The basic role of the Regional Councils is to represent residents at mayoralties and address residents' questions about civic services they carry out, Akhdar said.
