The Minister of Transport, Abdullah Al-Muqbil, recently made waves when he was spotted wearing a helmet among workers and engineers at the site of a development project. The ministry’s undersecretary also carried out similar inspection tours all across the country.
Such practices are not common in the Kingdom. It is a whiff of fresh air and is helping in changing the general image of ministers in the Kingdom, who until recently were considered to be bureaucratic figures disconnected from the real world.
Naturally, we cannot compare Saudi Arabia with Japan; hence we cannot expect our ministers to go to their offices riding bicycles as the Japanese ministers do. But what this minister and other officials did make us all proud. It may look odd to thank somebody for doing what he is supposed to do. In fact, we thank them for two good reasons —to tell them that we are tracking them and in the meantime we appreciate what they do, and secondly to motivate others to follow suit.
The transport minister and his assistants are aware that the Kingdom has embarked upon a revolution in the field of transportation — a fact that necessitates that every one of them should be on the spot to observe, monitor and supervise.
Most importantly, these reports about seeing the ministers leaving their air-conditioned offices to follow up projects on the ground sends a message to everybody, i.e. the new attitude of our leadership is completely focused on accountability and there is no place for laziness or procrastination. Moreover, the ministerial portfolio will not from now on be a privilege or prestige for certain persons rather a duty that requires perseverance and hard work.
