Syed Hussein Al -Qassab
Intensifying campaigns to limit the phenomenon of street vendors in Manama
The Capital Secretariat Council discussed during its session yesterday morning, which was headed by the Vice -President of the Council, Dr. Kholoud Al -Qattan, the most prominent requirements and needs of the second district, especially in the areas of the capital, Manama and Al -Qafoul, amid clear calls to restore the original residential nature of the region, address overcrowding issues, and the abuse of public spaces. Providing new games for children, increasing the green area to improve the public environment, in addition to organizing collective housing to reduce population overcrowding, removing road works that hinder traffic and pedestrians, as well as organizing the process of reserving parking lots, and applying control to prevent misuse. Inspection carries out periodic campaigns to remove columns and unlicensed barriers used to book parking, indicating that the removal is limited only to unlicensed columns by the Ministry of Works. On its part, Dr. Kholoud Al -Qattan indicated that the suffering of the people, especially the Bahrainis who live in Manama and Laful, is real and must be taken into account, adding that the Bahraini people Excluded, and a mechanism must be considered a special advantage to protect their right to housing and parking lots. In the same context, the Acting Director General of the Capital Municipality, M. Al -Fayya Al -Fadala, expressed its regret that there is no clear mechanism that addresses this problem, proposing a comprehensive field survey and allocating privileges for the Bahraini people who are inhabitants, instead of foreigners or building guards who misuse parking lots through Sending and renting it. On his part, council member Dr. Abdul Hassan Abbas called for re -consideration of the capital, Manama, and to restore the authentic Bahraini nature of it. In another topic, the Chairman of the Capital Secretariat, Saleh Taradah, presented a new proposal during the council’s session, including the use of artificial intelligence technologies to collect and analyze the statements of public parks in the Kingdom of Bahrain, to take advantage of modern technology in measuring and analyzing the behavior of visitors in order to enhance the services provided and develop future plans. The proposal to collect accurate data that helps to make enlightened administrative and operational decisions, as the data that will be collected information about the approximate life of visitors includes facial recognition techniques or images analysis, and sex based on the visual analysis of photos or video, with full care to respect the privacy. The proposal includes measuring the number of visitors on a daily basis or within certain hours, and the analysis of visiting patterns such as the most common times (morning or evening), and the extent The duration of the visit, in addition to identifying the most used places such as stadiums, green spaces or restaurants, where activities in which visitors such as sports, read or hiking participate are tracked, in a way that contributes to improving distribution and planning for gardens. This proposal reflects the headmaster’s direction towards the use of artificial intelligence in various fields, including improving the entertainment and environmental experience of visitors, in addition to providing accurate and realistic data that helps to enhance the efficiency of planning and administrative decisions in the future. The Capital Secretariat’s session also witnessed discussion of a number of important files, the most prominent of which was the efforts of the secretariat and intensifying campaigns to address the phenomenon of street vendors that are violating. The Acting Director of the Inspection Department of the Capital Secretariat, Khalifa Al-Kaabi, stated that the Secretariat carried out 11 inspection campaigns during the first three months of this year (January-March), which resulted in the removal of 44 shipments that were spreading in the streets of the main such as Sheikh Hamad Street, Sa`sa Street, and Zubara Street, indicating that during the month of January, 20 shipments were removed, while the municipality removed 9 shipments in February and 15 charges in March. He explained that the intensification of the campaigns came with direct guidance from the minister and the agent after circulating a video of a Kuwaiti tourist related to street vendors in the Manama market, which sparked public opinion about a year and a half ago, and he called the firm move to apply the law. Al -Kaabi pointed out that the goal is not only to reduce this phenomenon, but to eliminate it completely, because any reduction without eradication will allow its return again. For his part, the inspector Hamad, the delegate from the municipality of Muharraq, said that a report was received from the police about the presence of street vendors in the Sitra area selling fish, and after the investigation, about 200 people from sellers and buyers were seized, and violations of 100 dinars were issued to each seller. He added that this fine is an effective deterrent, and in the event of non -payment, the data of the violators will be referred to the Ministry of Interior to be summoned.
