A CALL has gone out for increased community partnerships to ensure municipal violations are monitored and offenders punished.
This came as the Northern Municipal Council yesterday approved a proposal to clean up sites in Buri following complaints of illegal dumping of construction and agricultural waste, illegal building along with unregistered pools and other violations.
Area councillor Zaina Jassim, who also represents Al Qaraya, west Janabiya and Hamala, described the area as a “disaster”.
“There are various violations and not just one type; you have construction and agricultural waste being illegally dumped in areas, unregistered pools, and many more offences,” she said.
“There are even areas that are fenced off and violators illegally dump construction waste – so they are blatantly breaking the law.”
Northern Municipality director general Lamya Al Fadhala stressed the importance of community partnerships to ensure neighbourhoods remain clean and violators are punished.
“We have exhausted all avenues available to us when it comes to cleaning Buri,” she said.
“We clean one day and the next day it is like we haven’t touched the area at all; there is a need for constant monitoring and regulation.
“We don’t have the manpower to allocate an employee just to watch the area specifically since violators don’t commit offences to a set timing schedule.
“Community partnership is key – we have received pictures of trucks dumping waste in illegal landfills and these images sent by concerned citizens allowed us to identify the culprit and take appropriate legal action.”
Council chairman Ahmed Al Kooheji even suggested rewarding citizens who bring the violations to light but the idea was shot down by Ms Al Fadhala, saying it was illegal to do so.
“Citizens who publicise these violations should be given part of the fines collected as a reward because they are doing us a service,” said Mr Al Kooheji.
Councillor Hussain Al A’ali, who represents A’ali, said creating a reward system for those reporting violations could cause problems amongst the residents.
He also pointed out that this could result in people playing pranks on each other, acting out in revenge, and telling tales just for the money.
“A reward system will cause problems between people and you are assuming everyone is going to act mature about it and stick to the rules.
“Someone might dump waste in front of his neighbour’s house out of spite and take a picture and report him to authorities.
“We also can’t have people acting as spies on each other simply for reward money.”
Meanwhile, an agreement was yesterday reached to launch a cleanliness campaign once the municipality’s current sewer maintenance programme is complete.
The council also passed a proposal to request more sewage suction tanks for the Northern Municipality as it currently has 12.
Both proposals will be referred to the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Minister Essam Khalaf.
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