“This is the second week that the Jeddah municipality continues its efforts during the holy month of Ramadan. Municipality inspection tours will continue until all unlicensed street vendors and stalls are eliminated,” said Bashir Abu-Najm, director of commercial supervision at the municipality.
Abu Najm told Arab News that municipality inspections took place at multiple neighborhoods inside the city, and were made all throughout this past week. Neighborhoods included Bab Makkah, Al-A’Amaria, surrounding areas near Al-Assad cemetery and in Al-Balad.
More than 30 vegetables and fruit stalls were confiscated; five stalls selling consumer goods including shoes, leather belts and hardware were also confiscated by the municipality inspectors and were given to charitable organizations in the city.
“The main reasons behind confiscating and pursuing these street vendors is perhaps to protect consumers from commercial fraud, and aid in combating illegal street vendors from operating on the streets, which sometimes causes traffic problems. Generally, squatting street vendors tend to look uncivilized,” said Khalid Al-A’amari, head of the municipality’s branch in Al-Balad.
In related news, the municipality announced on Tuesday, that more than 21 female trainees from King Abdulaziz University had benefited from the joint summer program between the university and the municipality. The summer program was designed to support young male and females learn from real life experiences.
This summer, the Jeddah municipality said that 21 female students joined the women’s section at the municipality, where they worked and received training in several fields including information technology, linguistics, management and information systems.
“I found this opportunity very useful. It opened to me and to others in the program various real life prospects, especially in the field of technology,” said Rawa Abu Hassan.
