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| The CMC members taking part in discussions |
Education, transport and health were upmost in the minds of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) members when they met yesterday with the House demanding stringent steps to regulate private school fees and the sale of junk food in the country.
Upgrading Karwa services, regulating private school fees, nurturing healthy food habits and raising pensions and State aid were among the main issues discussed yesterday at the regular meeting of the CMC.
The members approved the recommendations of the Committee of Services and Public Facilities regarding the need to put fixed standards and mechanisms to check the increasing cases of private schools raising fees as well as classifying these schools into different categories with a specific fee structure for each level.
Private schools should also be asked to improve their curricula and buildings. Further, the state should give citizens more financial support for the education of their children. Parents should be able to select the school that suits their children .
Regarding the services of Karwa, the committee recommended that the company upgrade its taxi fleet especially the airport services to reflect a good image of the country. The presence of Karwa taxis across the country should be enhanced, especially in tourist areas and the taxis should be equipped with a map of the country clearly indicating the attractions with related contacts.
Karwa should increase the number of its taxis and buses throughout the various locations within the country, giving more focus to streamline the call centre mechanism to combat the phenomenon of private taxis. Buses have to allocate special places for the handicapped and the bus stops should provide covered waiting areas for passengers.
The CMC deputy chairman Jassim al-Malki suggested all food items should carry a tag mentioning the calories they contain to avoid the adverse consequences of eating unhealthy food. “Overweight, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases have been on the rise lately within the Qatari society,” he said. He saw the need for changing the popular conceptions regarding nutrition habits. “Unhealthy food practices cost the country huge amounts of money and a considerable number of deaths every year.”
All restaurants, especially fast food outlets, should clearly inform their customers of the amount of calories of the food on their menu. He suggested that this could be implemented through the colours of the traffic lights indicating plausible rates and those that constitute health hazards. “The experiences of other countries in the field such as India, UK and USA could be taken into consideration in this regard.”
The suggestion was welcomed by the majority of the members and was referred to the Committee of Services and Public Facilities to study the potentialities for implementation.
CMC member Mohamed al-Azba asked the officials to take into consideration the vulnerable of the society who benefit from the social security pensions, estimated to be around 10,000 persons, especially widows, divorced women with children, orphans, the handicapped and the elderly.
He said that the pensions should be raised considering the recent salary hike, because the cost of living is increasing and this is their sole income. Another member said that it is the duty of the state to care for those people increasing their social allowances and help them improve their living standards.
Further, unemployed citizens should be classified according to their education levels and given financial aid accordingly.
CMC members defended the existence of small groceries within residential areas saying that they offer services that big malls do not normally provide, such as home delivery, delayed payment and quick neighbourhood shopping. However, they demanded that new licences for this type of shops should not be granted, instead new commercial complexes should take this into consideration from the first stage of planning .
As the session concluded, all the members rejected a notification the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) asking them to delay new demands for six months until the consultative companies concluded the study they are conducting on the construction projects around the country. The notification did not include maintenance works requests. They also expressed their disappointment at this because of the already pending demands submitted by their respective electorates. To resolve this, they suggested that CMC would delegate CMC chairman Saud al-Khinzab to discuss the issue with Ashghal in person.
Some students from a number of independent secondary schools were present at the session to acquire the knowledge of democratic discussion.
