JEDDAH, 29 March 2005 — The Council of Ministers yesterday decided to transform the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) into an independent body as part of efforts to privatize the organization.
The weekly Cabinet meeting, chaired by Crown Prince Abdullah, also instructed the SWCC to speed up its restructuring process. It set up the corporation’s board of directors with the minister of water and electricity as chairman and SWCC’s governor deputy chairman. The board includes five government officials and two private sector representatives.
Based in Riyadh, SWCC will have all the rights to carry out its activities, said Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani, quoting a Cabinet statement.
The Cabinet meeting approved alterations to the SWCC’s bylaw making it to conform with the corporation’s new status.
“It will conclude agreements and contracts for the sale and purchase of water, electricity and steam with public as well as private production and distribution agencies,” the new bylaw says.
The corporation can also construct, purchase or rent or sell real estate for its use, according to the new bylaw. It can also rent properties for water and electricity projects at nominal rates.
The government recently offered new desalination projects worth SR36 billion to private investors as part of its drive to fully privatize the sector. Winners of the contracts will have a 60 percent stake in the projects, according to Fehaid Al-Sharief, governor of SWCC and chairman of the Water & Electricity Company (WEC).
The Cabinet meeting expressed satisfaction over the outcome of the Algiers Arab summit, especially its decisions to re-launch the Arab peace initiative — originally proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah — and to support Lebanon’s sovereign right to determine its political future.
During the meeting, Interior Minister Prince Naif briefed the Cabinet on the outcome of his recent visit to Sudan, which saw the signing of two pacts to strengthen security cooperation as well as to combat terrorism and drug trafficking.
The meeting endorsed the memorandum of understanding signed with Albania for political consultation as well as the GCC quarantine law.
It appointed Muhammad ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Fayez adviser for regional affairs, Abdullah ibn Muhammad Abudirae adviser for information technology at the Interior Ministry and Saleh ibn Ahmed Al-Saadi director general of the audit bureau in the Eastern Province.
