The Central Vegetable and Fruits Market at Abu Hamour should be upgraded and developed into a “modern and sophisticated” facility, members of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) demanded yesterday.
“The CMC has been raising this demand for a long time now without any success,” chairman Saud al-Hinzab told the regular bi-weekly session.
He recalled that a project to establish a new vegetable and fruit market in place of the current one, was “first given to Hassad Food, which promised to implement it within a certain time frame, then it was taken over by Widam Food Company, which also promised to accomplish it”.
“Officials from both companies came to the CMC and talked about the issue last year but no substantial development has happened yet,” al-Hinzab stated.
CMC member Hamad Lahdan al-Muhannadi said if the issue was communicated to an agency like the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), “they would say there is a project scheduled to establish a sophisticated market and it would take some time to materialise”.
“So, we need temporary solutions to overcome the current problems with the existing market, which should be upgraded with paved platforms, covered area and more decent storage facilities. The government has already established simple but good yards for the selling of vegetables and fruits. So why such examples are not being followed?” he asked.
CMC vice chairman Jassim al-Malki, who raised the issue, noted that “after the recent heavy rains, the defects of the market became evident with food materials sunk in the mud and dirt due to the unpaved ground and uncovered areas. This also produced foul smells.”
Other members argued that the state of the market could lead to health and safety hazards and urgent solutions should be adopted by the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning and the Doha Municipality, in particular.
CMC members agreed unanimously to issue detailed recommendations on the issue and address them to HE the Minister of Municipality and Urban Planning to take necessary action.
The council yesterday hosted some senior officials from Ashghal to discuss the issue of trucks that transport excessive loads on the roads, which might cause damage to the public property
Responding to the concerns of CMC members, Khalid al-Emadi, manager of Quality and Safety Department at Ashghal, said excessive weight of the trucks and their cargoes could cause no harm to roads so long as the load was well balanced on the number of wheels of the vehicle.
Suggestions like using more lighter trucks on internal roads to avoid any damages to the roads would not be practical as this would entail more cost, take extra time and increase congestion. Yet, solutions such as assigning certain tracks or lanes for heavy trucks and avoiding the peak times could be worked out.
Regarding Ashghal constructing some temporary roads in the new areas, al-Emadi said that these were necessary to speed up the supply of basic services such as water, electricity, sanitary drainage and communications.
The official said that Ashghal had already recycled more than 40mn tonnes of construction waste since the process started two years ago.
The council issued recommendations regarding studying the possibility of granting licences to buildings that overlook the main streets of the country, to have multi-storey levels that could be used for general purposes: residential, commercial, services and offices.
Real estate developers should be given more opportunities to build small residential units that could be rented to expatriates at affordable rates to avoid the illegal practices of partitioned villas.
A study should be conducted to establish more high-rise apartment buildings at various locations to address the same problem.
The CMC session was attended by students from Al-Zubara Local Independent Secondary School for boys and Ghernata Independent School for girls, who were on an educational trip.
