DOHA: Some members of the Central Municipal Council (CMC), known for their criticism of the Public Works Authority and its style of functioning, want a body above it and under the transport ministry to supervise, design and execute road and highway projects.
The argument of these members is that Ashghal (the Public Works Authority) alone should not be entrusted with building highways and expressways, allegedly due to the poor quality of its execution of many such projects.
Local Arabic daily Al Raya reported yesterday that there have been defects in the designing and execution of many road projects and there is no regular maintenance, and that’s why the CMC members want what they say is a supreme committee for road projects.
“You can see many cracks in asphalted surfaces of several newly built roads,” the daily said.
CMC member Hamad Lahdan Al Mohannadi told the daily that it was important to set up a higher committee under the transport ministry and it should be responsible for specifying standards for road construction.
The proposed authority should work in close coordination with Ashghal, the Traffic Department and the urban planning department of the municipal ministry.
Another CMC member, Mohamed Zafir Al Hajri, said: “We at the CMC have been demanding the establishment of such an authority for a long time. We need it”.
He said the Traffic Department must play an active role in its coordination with the proposed apex authority because it is concerned with traffic movement and road safety.
The CMC members said that one could see repairs being carried out on major roads and highways right after their completion, suggesting that there had been defects in the execution of the projects.
One could also see signalised intersections being built years after a road had been constructed, indicating that the intersections were not envisaged at the design stage.
“Why are we wasting our money? Why can’t we take future developments into account while conceptualising and designing a road?,” asked yet another CMC member, Hamad Khalid Al Kubaisi.
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