DOHA: Individuals and companies may soon need a permit from the Ministry of Environment to extract, transfer or use sand, soil or stones and their derivatives for construction, paving or land-filling.
A draft law to make the permit mandatory has been prepared and the Cabinet yesterday took measures to issue it.
The draft seeks to amend some provisions of Law No 3 of 2007 regulating the use of natural resources like sand, soil and stones. The draft has incorporated Advisory Council’s recommendations.
The ministry is expected to issue a decision, detailing terms and conditions for a permit from it for extracting or dealing in or using the materials.
A construction industry source told this newspaper that the move would make construction materials more expensive and increase construction costs.
He said sand is in short supply and only bigger projects are able to access it easily.
He, however, agreed that extraction and sale of the materials would be regulated once the new law is put into force.
Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani chaired the weekly Cabinet session at Emiri Diwan.
The Cabinet approved a draft law that focuses on sale, transfer or export of and dealing in any other way in food items and fodder subsidised for sale to citizens.
The draft law includes terms and conditions for beneficiaries of state subsidy to access these items and for outlets that would be issued permit to sell them.
No one who doesn’t hold a permit to buy or sell these items could possess, carry, or deal in in any way or transfer them.
The products can’t be exchanged, hoarded, hidden or thrown away. The draft law, according to Qatar News Agency, bars these items from being taken out of the country.
“No one is allowed to use them or part of them to produce another product without permission from the concerned department,” says the draft law.
According to sources, the draft focuses on high quality and expensive food items like rice, butter, sugar and edible oil, among others, made available to nationals at highly subsidised prices.
Sometimes these items land in smaller restaurants for use in preparing dishes. Once the law comes into force, such practices would be punishable.
The Cabinet also looked into a draft decision of the Minister of Environment about organic farming and amendment of a decision regarding some administrative units of the ministry.
The Peninsula
