DOHA: The outgoing Central Municipal Council (CMC) will hold the last session of its term on Tuesday. This is the fourth term of the 29-member council elected in 2011.
Election to the fifth CMC was held on May 11 in which some 14 members sought re-election and won. After Tuesday, the new CMC will wait for an Emiri Decree for its installation. Some members of the new CMC expect the installation by this month-end.
A highlight of the fifth term of the CMC (whose tenure is for four years) is that for the first time two women have won seats. One was sitting member Sheikha Al Jefairi and the other Fatima Al Kuwari, a first-timer.
This will be Sheikha’s fourth consecutive term. Chairman of the current CMC, Saud Abdullah Al Hanzab, will be missed as he didn’t seek re-election. His deputy, Jassem Al Malki, did from Constituency No. 1 and won unopposed.
The current CMC has made many achievements. According to information, it made some 429 proposals on various issues, mainly concerning road expansion and traffic jams, and forwarded to the government. At least 275 (about 65 percent) were accepted by the government for execution. None was carried forward from the previous CMC (third term).
Sources said these were the maximum number of proposals any CMC, since its maiden term in 1999, had come up with and forwarded to the government.
The CMC has many committees, including complaints, legal panel and services panels.
In the four years since the installation of the current CMC, some 205 issues were referred to these panels for opinion.
And in the past four years, senior officials of ministries, government agencies and authorities, including the civic ministry, Awqaf ministry, Supreme Council of Health and the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), have been invited to the CMC to provide information on key issues concerning the public.
In remarks to this newspaper, Sheikha Al Jefairi confirmed that Tuesday’s session of the public representative body will be the last for the current term. “We will look forward to the installation of the new CMC for its fifth term,” she said.
The Peninsula
