Your Royal Highness Prince Khaled Al-Faisal,
As a resident of Jeddah, I have observed with great anguish the continuing deterioration of the city’s infrastructure over the past three decades. I have also heard during this period lofty claims by public sector officials about the city’s development that would have put any other city to shame — promises, I may add, that had never materialized over time.
Today our city is sinking under the onslaught of shoddy and substandard productivity of our public service sectors. We have yet to see an effective sewage system, something promised over three decades ago! A city that transports its waste in dump trucks cannot be counted to hold its own among leading cities. I often wonder about the harmful spread of diseases by such practices.
Our roads are a literal mess of potholes and scabs of road patchwork that guarantee continuous torment as we navigate through the city. Streets and roads dug up with massive and inconvenient diversions lay dormant for months on end with very little activity and no regard to the motorist. Many complain, but the digging goes on.
Traffic in this city has become a nightmare. Choked and clogged thoroughfares are not helped by the erratic and pitiable driving habits the residents have adopted, as our traffic enforcers watch idly by. Very little in the way of enforcing is observed unless it happens to be a hapless motorist from an Asian country.
The nonavailability of water to our homes, a necessity of all living things, is a repeated nightmare; yet nothing seems to change. Long lines of residents stand in sufferance at the water distribution center on Makarona Street. Young or old, men or women, there is no discrimination here, as they wait patiently by the hours for their turn.
The lack of public parks and the shrinking public beachfront offer no viable retreat for residents fed up with just about everything else. In spite of scores of promises over the years by city officials, very little has materialized in the way of parks and gardens, except perhaps through the efforts of private individuals and organizations such as Friends of Jeddah Parks.
The practice by merchants of their establishments’ erratic opening hours has succeeded in turning the residents including young children into night owls. Shops open at 10 a.m, and close by noon only to reopen at 5 p.m. and stay late till midnight. This does not do well in maintaining bliss and harmony among families, as most of the outings get deferred for later in the evening. Being late to bed invariably brings forth groggy mornings.
Unauthorized and nonzoned construction is prevalent all over the city, as buildings sit alongside homes, often dwarfing the neighborhoods. And during construction, very little is done in enforcing the law, as contractors literally block and litter the streets in front of their construction sites with little or no regard to the residents.
The shortage of recreation and amusement centers for our teenage boys is of rising concern for parents. Deprived from entry at most public places, these young boys often take to the streets in their vehicles, sometimes tragically driving themselves and others into oblivion. Or in some cases indulging in harmful practices such as the use of drugs to put them past their perceived misery.
I could go on and on, but that is not the purpose of this letter. I had spoken of such ills many times in the past through my columns. I had even offered suggestions on how to go about fixing some of these aberrations. But all such entreaties had fallen on deaf ears.
I had followed with interest your participation in the developmental plans for the province’s 10-year plan at a meeting at the Umm Al-Qura University recently. And I have full confidence in your commitments to increase transparency in city government. However, Your Royal Highness, I wonder what had happened to the five— and ten-year plans set in the past three decades. Plans vociferously heralded then but never materialized by city officials entrusted to carry them out.
What is desperately needed here is an immediate and fair system of accountability of all public service officials present and past who have failed to deliver on their promises, and yet who have successfully padded their personal coffers at the expense of a weary public.
Unless such public service officials are not held liable and brought to swift justice publicly, more of the same could continue for lack of reckoning, as the rot in our bureaucracy has set in. Only then can the road to a better tomorrow will be realized.
As residents of Jeddah, we can and should do more on our part, but we desperately need your help. This city is a gateway for millions of pilgrims from all over the world, and we want them to experience more than shortages of water or bad roads. You are our hope for today, and through you and your concern can we truly make this a world-class city.
I beg your pardon if in any way you find this letter unpleasant or offensive but let the truth be told: I cannot keep holding it in any longer. Either this or I may have to find another residential alternative such as Cape Town or Chennai to hold on to my remaining senses.
