About a month ago I asked Prince Muqrin, the governor of Madinah, why he does not allow the million plus pilgrims to use the Madinah airport for direct flights to and from their home country. While Makkah may appear on the map to be close to Madinah, the two cities are actually about 400 kilometers apart. He said that the city’s ambitions go beyond merely expanding the airport’s activities; they go beyond this year and the next. “We have a development plan up to the year 2010.”
After reviewing this theoretical project on paper, I thought to myself that Prince Muqrin was rather optimistic. I don’t know how he intends to do it, what with murderous bureaucracy.
Two weeks later I was agreeably surprised by the announcement from Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, which is responsible for the administration of the country’s airports, that Madinah airport will be a second principal international point of arrival for pilgrims. Having been thus surprised, I reassessed the ideas that Prince Muqrin had shared with me. These ideas are quite comprehensive. The pitfalls that may threaten the plan have evidently been taken into account, including such threats as a drop in the price of oil.
His vision is ambitious and yet possible if the various government departments cooperate, as did the Ministry of Defense and Aviation. It is even possible for the plan to be completed before the anticipated date of 2010. The plan includes building a huge airport that would be run by the private sector and raising the number of visitors from 4 million to 10 million a year. An astronomical figure perhaps, but one that is achievable if the projects go according to plan.
Madinah is home to around 600,000 people, a staggering figure considering that at the peak of its prosperity the number of inhabitants was no higher than 80,000. Historically Madinah has long been a refuge for tribes and groups from the north and the south. The city also became home for tribes from Yemen. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and the blessings of Allah be upon him) made his famous journey to this city making it his refuge, the center of his message and the capital of the Islamic state.
Prince Muqrin’s project is exciting — he wants to build an expressway and to create jobs for the city’s inhabitants in the service sector.
I asked him about the bureaucratic problems facing him. E-government may be the answer. There is a proposal, he said, to electronically keep tabs on applications and submissions to the governorate. Each application would have a time limit. If the application had not been processed by the specified time, a complaint would be automatically made against the employee dealing with it, which would go to the head of the department. An exemplary idea — and one that should be implemented in all government departments.
