It was a pleasant late Thursday afternoon when my wife and I took a drive along the north Corniche or the little that remains of it. Driving by the large picturesque mosque on the waterfront, I was surprised to see a large number of tour buses parked along the road, and the huge gathering of crowds just walking about and taking in the scenery. I surmised that they were Hajis, having performed their obligations, and with a little bit of time on their hands, they were out to discover a bit of this place before boarding various aircraft and flying to equally various destinations.
It was indeed an endearing sight to see groups upon groups of well-behaved people of differing colors and nationalities walking about, taking pictures of each other, and all in all just having a good time. As I continued down this stretch of the Corniche, it wasn’t long before I spotted a local dumping the trash from his vehicle by the side of the road.
Further down, at a spot we parked by to take in the crashing waves, I saw a father casually discard a used diaper among the breakers, while his kid sat on a dangerously parked stroller. And this only a few feet away from one of those little green trash buckets set aside for this purpose. He drove off shortly while I sat there in a state of amazement. As we continued our drive, I saw another person dumping refuse through the window of a moving vehicle and absolutely littering the road. “Dirty people, I swear‚” I muttered in disgust.
“What was that?” my wife inquired.
“Dirty people! Just look at them. Spreading their filth everywhere they go. I ought to write a column titled the Dirty People are Everywhere,” I continued.
“You can’t say that!” cautioned my wife. “It would be taken out of context.”
And then I thought about it. She was probably right and what was the point of just complaining anyway? If there are social issues to be addressed, shouldn’t I also think about ways to remedy them as well?
“You‚re right. You know, I think I have a way to put a stop to all of this,” I replied. “Littering citations! Hurt them where it counts; their pockets!”
“And how do you propose on doing this?” inquired my other half.
“Well, there are a large number of unemployed Saudi youths who have nowhere to go, right?” I answered. “I propose that the municipality hire them at say SR2500, issue them a book of citations, and set them loose in various points in the city.
Each citation would carry a SR50 fine for littering. And from what I’ve seen in a few minutes, these municipal litter officers would finish writing a book of citations in no time.”
“I would venture to safely guess that each of these officers would write no less than 50 such citations within an eight-hour shift. That comes to SR2500 per officer per shift, an amount equal to his monthly salary. Just think about it. It addresses two prominent issues here: unemployment and littering.”
“And best of all, the municipality would not have to worry about apportioning a sizable part of their existing budget to hire additional staff. No, as a matter of fact, this would be an income-generating venture for their agency. Look, did we ever dream of seeing a sizable percentage of people here observing the seat belt law. It was only when they were slapped with SR100 fines that the law was taken seriously and observed. Well, we can do the same with littering, I bet!”
“Oh Tariq. There you go, dreaming again” was her encouraging response.
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, [email protected]
