AALI, Bahrain, 17 October 2006 — The Bahraini authorities warned construction and transportation companies yesterday they would face fines and legal action if they continued to unsafely carry workers in the back of trucks.
The crackdown will be enforced by the General Directorate of Traffic (GDT), which will carry out an awareness campaign before it begins large-scale enforcement on all of Bahrain’s roads in about a month. The move comes after a sharp increase in the number of violations for transporting workers in vehicles without seats in the first nine months of this year, jumping from 249 in January to 821 in September.
It also follows a number of highly publicized accidents involving such trucks in recent weeks, the last of which left three workers — two Indians and one Bangladeshi — dead and more than 21 injured following a three-vehicle collision.
According to labor figures there are about 70,000 construction workers in Bahrain people working in the construction field, 75 percent of them are Indians.
Head of Licensing at the traffic authority, Lt. Col. Khalid Rabea Al-Dosari, said during a press conference at the directorate headquarters in Aaali, south of Manama, that the accidents were the result of disregard for the regulations and driver error.
“The Bahraini code allows for such trucks to transport workers if they meet certain requirements, but most of the companies today failed to get proper permits and relaxed implementing these requirements,” he said.
Al-Dosari added that the spike in number of violations and accidents involving such truck was partially the result of the increasing number of construction projects under way.
“If the legislature decides to ban these trucks we will enforce it, but until then we have the laws in place that enable us to respond to this problem adequately especially since we do not want to harm the businesses which complied,” he said.
Head of legal affairs at the GDT Capt. Abdullah Rashid Al-Shahei said the department had been taking serious steps even before the campaign against the serious violators.
“Repeat offenders that are caught more than once have the previous offenses included in the charges brought against them to ensure that the public prosecutor seeks the maximum penalty,” he said.
