Riyadh Municipality is planning to create a new system that would allow people to secure permission for buildings on the same day they submit their applications. The program, entitled “One-Day License,” aims to ease the procedure of obtaining licenses. In order to bring the proposition into action, the municipality is planning to open 14 branches to issue licenses.
Meanwhile, Jeddah Municipality is heading toward a more complicated procedure by centralizing the issuance of licenses. This will surely make things more difficult for people and create monthslong delays.
What I do not understand is why municipalities are working separately, as if they’re totally isolated entities. Why is there no exchange of successful experience?
Jeddah, for instance, has been subjected to a construction planning that no other city in Saudi Arabia has ever experienced before. Each mayor has his own planning agenda that negates decisions made by the former mayor. We have reached a stage where we are haunted by so many changes, whose numbers add up to the number of mayors that Jeddah has seen.
Our hopes were raised when Adel Fakieh, who has a successful portfolio of working in the private sector, came to head the municipality.
Fakieh is competent and known for his managerial skills. However, it seems that Jeddah is burdened with so many problems that drown its mayors in a sea of mess, sucking up their energies, scattering their efforts and crippling their contributions.
I know that the man has plans, visions and goals. But how could he justify the difference in approach to the issuance of building licenses with other municipalities?
Why do they have a “one-day license” system in Riyadh and we have the “many-months license” in Jeddah? In Riyadh, they plan to open 14 branches, while in Jeddah everything is being centralized into one central branch.
I don’t know if this is a problem of trust or a lack of qualified individuals. I know that Jeddah used to be — compared to not just other Saudi cities but also the entire Gulf region — an advanced and modern city.
However, its wheels have stopped moving, while other cities continue advancing and progressing. What we want today is for the municipality to not only move Jeddah forward, but also to compensate the distance in progress between Jeddah and her peers.
