A senior official has urged the public to take greater responsibility for safeguarding walkways, public parks, and coastal facilities from vandalism, warning that reliance on security personnel and advanced surveillance systems alone has proven ineffective in preventing such behaviour.
Speaking on the issue, Northern Municipality director-general Mohammed Al Sehli said the municipality could not justify spending on new facilities while existing ones were being repeatedly damaged and repaired at a significant cost.
“People have to realise that this is their property and destroying, vandalising or looting it is their own loss,” he said. “I cannot sanction spending on new facilities and at the same time take care of this irresponsible behaviour.”
Mr Al Sehli explained that the municipality was operating strictly according to planned projects and scheduled maintenance, but had previously gone beyond its allocation to secure special funding to repair damaged sites.
“We have several times gone the extra length to get special funding to fix and repair damaged facilities,” he said. “But this has stopped as we are asking for the same money towards the same places twice, if not thrice, within a year.”
He stressed that the problem was not a lack of security presence. Cameras and guards, he said, were already in place at many public locations.
“The security is there to guard and not stop, when someone is determined,” he said. “The cameras are there to identify culprits following the crime and not stop them. Even then, recovering costs and expenses becomes a long court battle.”
Mr Al Sehli highlighted that those responsible for the damage were not usually children – but adults.
“It is not children that we are dealing with regularly, it is mostly adults,” he added. “Irresponsible behaviour has no justification whatsoever and is just leading us nowhere.”
He also urged municipal councillors to activate the role of Public Parks’ Friends groups to help protect and monitor facilities, saying community involvement was now more important than ever.
Meanwhile, Northern Municipal councillor Abdulla Al Qobaisi offered a different perspective, suggesting that the hiring of guards who do not speak Arabic or English was contributing to the problem. He argued that communication gaps between security personnel and visitors were fuelling confrontations and failing to prevent misconduct.
However, Mr Al Sehli rejected the claim that language barriers were a primary cause of vandalism.
“In fact, it is a result of self-determination to destroy despite repeated warnings by security guards in any language not to commit destruction,” he said.
He maintained that the core issue was behavioural, not operational, and called for greater public awareness and responsibility to preserve shared spaces.
The debate comes as municipal councils continue to press for new parks, upgraded walkways and improved recreational facilities across residential areas, even as existing locations face recurring damage that consumes maintenance budgets.
“The issue is not about facilities or security,” Mr Al Sehli said. “It is about responsibility. Until people change their habits, we will keep fixing the same places again and again instead of moving forward.”
mohammed@gdnmedia.bh
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