NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : WAM/THE NATIONAL/ARABIAN BUSINESS
Indian Ambassador: speculating about figures of Indians likely to leave for Inida premature and unhelpful
ABU DHABI - 09 FEB:: Ambassador of India to the UAE Talmiz Ahmad today said that the embassy in Abu Dhabi does not have "any factual information whatsoever regarding the number of Indian nationals likely to leave UAE for India following termination of their employment contracts." Ahmed's statement which was released today by the Indian Embassy came in response to queries regarding the departure of Indian nationals from the UAE, following the termination of contracts.
He said speculating about figures is "premature and unhelpful".
"We are aware that the Government of UAE is making every effort to ensure that most of the ongoing projects are pursued and completed as per schedule", the Indian Ambassador to the UAE added.
WAM
Agent fined over villa crowding
AJMAN - FEB. 10: An estate agent in Ajman has been fined Dh50,000 after eight bachelors were found sharing a family home that was on its books.
The fine was the latest in an Ajman Municipality campaign that saw it collect Dh6.5million (US$1.77m) in fines from 1,300 landlords in the last five months of last year for mixing bachelors with families.
That included one case where 400 workers were found living in one villa that was also being used as a bakery.
Mohammed Wahab, the head of the municipality’s residence organising committee, said the most recent fine involved a house in the family area of Masfoot.
Ajman Municipality is warning landlords and estate agents it would no longer tolerate bachelors living in family areas.
Mr Wahab said if landlords had any doubts, they should ask people seeking housing in family areas for marriage certificates before signing contracts.
“We will be intensifying our inspections this year,” he said. “We are aware so many families have sent back their spouses and children because of the financial crisis but continued staying in family residential areas.”
Mr Wahab dismissed concerns that there was not enough bachelor accommodation in the emirate, saying much of the industrial area was designated for them
GCC plans improved superbug controls
ABU DHABI - FEB. 10: The GCC has issued infection-control guidelines in an effort to unify regional standards and reduce the number of potentially life-threatening infections acquired in hospitals.
The Middle East Centre for Infection Control and Disinfection Technology in Jordan puts the percentage of people who acquire infections in regional hospitals at between 15 and 20 per cent, compared with 10 to 14 per cent in Europe.
“It is much higher than the level in other places,” said Dr Iyad Hijjawi, the general manager of the centre.
“The biggest problem we are facing in the GCC is we lack any surveys or statistics from the public or private sector,” he said. “Very, very few professionals log the prevalence of hospital-acquired infections.”
“You need to know what the problem is in order to solve it,” he said.
The initiative comes as one of the largest hospitals in the UAE disclosed the results of its first year of screening for MRSA, a common bacterium in hospitals that is known as a “superbug” because of its resistance to certain drugs.
Al Mafraq Hospital in Abu Dhabi has introduced wide-ranging measures to identify cases of MRSA, including screening new and long-stay patients, and says it detected 62 cases last year.
Dr Hijjawi said it was vital that national governments put the control of hospital-acquired infections at the top of their health agendas; if they did, he said, it would save lives as well as money. The GCC initiative was a step in the right direction, he said, but each country needed to develop its own policy.
The guidelines, the first set of regional policies in the Middle East to address the problem, have taken a year to finalise and are currently on the “printing presses”, according to Dr Ziad Memish, the director of the GCC’s Centre for Infection Control.
“The first point is to standardise the practice,” he said.
“We have spoken to experts, and used the expertise in the region, and put in place standards, policies and procedures to govern infection control.
“It took a lot of effort to get everyone to agree on them.”
The guidelines address such issues as staff immunisation, basic hygiene procedures, waste disposal, clothing, cleaning processes and reporting techniques.
In the capital emirate, infection control is the responsibility of the Health Authority – Abu Dhabi (HAAD). A comprehensive policy is already in place and has been reviewed by the Joint Commission International, a healthcare accreditation organisation. According to Dr Jamal al Kaabi, head of the hospital and clinical inspection section, there are plans to improve it.
Under the Policy on Infection Control in Health Care Facilities, published in May 2007 and due to be reviewed and, if necessary, amended in May, all healthcare centres must have infection-control plans, policies, procedures and guidelines.
“The goal of the infection-control policies is to identify and reduce risks of acquiring and transmitting infections among patients, staff, students, volunteers, contract service workers and visitors,” the policy states.
Dr Kaabi said inspectors had been asking to see individual infection-control plans, but that now they would be focusing on their implementation.
“Sometimes the problems are very obvious, such as using unsterilised equipment or not using the correct soap,” he said. “The main problem is that people do not comply with the policies. It is when infection control itself is not controlled that problems arise.”
Dr Kaabi said HAAD, which is authorised to close delinquent hospitals, was now concentrating on deficiencies in infection control and organising more medical lectures to help educate medical professionals.
Dubai has its own policies, and a spokesman for the new Dubai Health Authority said infection control was an important focus for the organisation. “The DHA is responsible for building on existing provisions to ensure that there is a suitable strategy in place to deal with all aspects of disease prevention and infection control,” he said.
The spokesman added that the DHA was working with a number of other Government departments, such as Dubai Municipality, to continue to develop best practices and policies.
No one was available to comment at the Ministry of Health, which is responsible for the northern emirates.
But a former employee at the ministry accused the Government of not being sufficiently proactive in creating and adopting federal policies for infection control.
“How can you follow someone else’s guidelines if you do not know what the problem is and you do not have your own guidelines? asked Dr Mansour al Zarouni, head of pathology and laboratory medicine and chairman of the Infection Control Committee at Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah. “This is something the Ministry of Health should have done first. I put a proposal for an infection-control plan to them three years ago and they said they are still studying it.”
Dr Zarouni called it “shocking” that the ministry did not have an infection-control department, or even its own protocols and guidelines.
He recalled a recent incident in a government hospital in the northern emirates that, he said, illustrated how bad infection problems could become if they were not properly managed.
“I went to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and found that they had a severe infection,” he said. “We discovered this had been around for eight years, but they were not aware of it. This is why it is so important to have an infection-control team in every hospital who know what to look for.”
THE NATIONAL
Government to tackle demolition waste
ABU DHABI - FEB. 10: The Government has funded two projects to tackle mountains of construction waste and giant piles of old tyres.
A contract, for Dh1.1 billion (US$300 million), has been awarded to Thiess Services Middle East to build and operate a demolition waste facility in Abu Dhabi.
Another to rebuild and operate an Al Ain recycling plant that is already capable of processing 20,000 tonnes of old tyres a year, went to Omnix Group. The two projects will be handed back to the Government at some point in the future. It is not clear when work on either project will be finished.
When they are, they will divert large amounts of waste from landfills and disposal sites that have filled under the strain of a rapidly growing population.
Millions of tyres have been dumped at nine locations in the emirate, creating a major environmental hazard. Old tyres are highly flammable and hard to put out when they catch fire.
Left at dump sites, where large amounts of methane gas are created by decomposing trash, they create even more of a hazard, said Majid al Mansouri, the secretary general of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi.
“The lifespan of the rubber that tyres are made of is hundreds or thousands of years,” he said.
Omnix Group, a company with offices in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE, specialises in computer-aided design, information technology, networking and security solutions.
When the Al Ain facility is finished, the recovered rubber will be used to make a range of products for use in the UAE including irrigation pipes, insulation and flooring solutions, and heat-resistant plastics for traffic signs. The 2005 State of the Environment Report estimated that up to 940 tonnes of construction waste was being dropped each day at Abu Dhabi’s largest disposal site at Al Dhafra, which covers 16square kilometres. Another site in Moqatra, Al Gharbia, received 5,000 tonnes a day.
Both amounts will increase significantly as Abu Dhabi continues to develop.
Thiess Services Middle East, a joint venture formed last year by Australia’s Thiess Services and Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises in Dubai, will build and manage a recycling plant for some of this waste.
Concrete, gravel and sand will be used in new construction.
The company has a 15-year concession agreement with the Centre of Waste Management Abu Dhabi for the project, which will take about a year to build and will also separate demolition debris including plastics, wood, ceramics and metals.
Most construction and demolition waste ends up in landfills, although other emirates have been taking steps to deal with the issue. Emirates Environmental Technology, an Austrian company, has been operating a construction waste recycling facility in Sharjah since November 2007.
The plant cost Dh40 million to build and processes 9,000 tonnes of waste per shift, producing a construction aggregate that can be used to pave roads and make bricks and cement.
The Dh65 million Emirates Recycling Plant began operating early last year in Dubai, where the construction industry was responsible for 27.7 million tonnes of waste in 2007. The two Abu Dhabi projects are part of a strategy to reform waste management services in the emirate.
Last year the Centre for Waste Management Abu Dhabi announced a scheme to rehabilitate six major disposal sites that for years were receiving waste from the capital’s households, industries and hospitals.
THE NATIONAL
Doctor warns over minibus safety
DUBAI - FEB. 10: Three labourers died and 11 were seriously injured when their mini-bus crashed as they travelled to work today.
The early morning smash near Jebel Ali in Dubai was the second serious accident involving a workers’ bus in two days, and the injuries sustained in it prompted one doctor to warn the vehicles were unsafe.
Police said today's accident happened when an Egyptian man driving a Kia 4x4 shifted lanes and hit the bus, causing it to overturn and hit a metal barrier. The bus was pitched onto another lane heading in the opposite direction, several of its occupants thrown out onto the road.
“There was blood everywhere,” said one witness, a motorist who was driving to work when the accident happened. “Other motorists were diverting traffic as they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive.”
Two of the three dead men were pronounced at scene of the accident, the third at the hospital. Seven of the 11 injured were categorised as extremely critical, while three were serious but stable. One man was discharged from hospital later today.
The seven critical patients suffered from brain injuries, while one also sustained a contusion of the lung and another suffered from a pelvic injury. Several underwent emergency surgery yesterday and were moved to the intensive care unit.
“The brain damage was a surprise to us,” said Dr Younis Kazim, director of medical affairs at Rashid Hospital. “Usually with cases of traffic accidents, patients suffer more often from severe body trauma to other areas, such as the chest and legs, rather than the head.”
The extent of brain damage signalled to doctors that at some point, the labourers heads were exposed.
“The problem with minibuses is that they are not as strong as other vehicles when dealing with impact,” said Dr Kazim. “Pick-up trucks are the worst, but minibuses are next in line.”
The accident occurred at 7.40am on the Jebel Ali Lhbab Road. The first patient arrived at Rashid Hospital by 8.15am, with the final patient arriving 90 minutes later.
Two of those injured were airlifted from the scene of the accident by helicopter, while the rest travelled in ambulances. Three of the injured were of Pakistani origin, while the rest, including the man who was pronounced dead on arrival, were Indian. The dead had not been formally identified today.
The driver of the Kia was not hurt. He was being held and questioned in Jebel Ali police station, said Major Khalid Kansham, director of the accident department at the General Department of Traffic, Dubai Police.
Police said he had been driving alone in the fast lane before quickly shifting to the middle lane, where the bus was travelling.
Major Kansham said police did not share Dr Kazim’s concerns about the safety of the bus.
“The bus meets international safety requirements and is approved by the Government and has been designed to transport passengers and its safety is not currently in question,” he said.
In another fatal crash at around the same time this morning, a Palestinian man died after he ran a red light and hit a concrete barrier on Al Khail roundabout in the direction of Al Barsha.
“The impact was so hard that the car’s rooftop ripped off,” said Esam al Awar, head of the patrol department Bur Dubai Station.
On Sunday 19 labourers were injured, six seriously, when two buses collided in Musaffah industrial area in Abu Dhabi. Some of the injured needed to be cut from the wreckage.
THE NATIONAL
Dubai's construction firms eye rest of Gulf as slowdown bites
DUBAI - FEB. 10: Dubai's construction companies have said Saudi Arabia is one of the places they are looking at for future developments. Dubai construction firms are stepping up plans to expand into other Gulf markets less badly hit by the property downturn, it was reported on Tuesday.
Gulf states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia where government have expansionary budgets were the places of choice for Dubai’s construction companies, reported UAE daily Emirates Business.
The sentiments come amid a massive property slowdown in the emirate, as a result of the global economic crisis, with as many as 53 percent of construction projects, worth $583 billion, on hold across the UAE, according to industry estimates.
“Saudi Arabia is definitely the place where growth is going to be sustained for the next two to three years,” Saleh Muradwiej, an executive director at Dubai contractor Drake & Scull, said at a construction meeting in UAE capital Abu Dhabi.
Drake, which specializes in mechanical, engineering and plumbing businesses, was in talks to buy companies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and would examine three to five opportunities in the next two to three months, he added.
“It will be difficult to pick up additional work in 2010 to 2011 so we are finding ways to find work outside of our immediate geographical area,” said Riad Kamal, chief executive of Arabtec Holding, the UAE’s biggest construction company.
“We are looking at Saudi and Qatar. Negotiations are ongoing,” Kamal said at the conference, where he also revealed to Arabian Business that job losses were on the cards for the company this year.
Earlier this week it was revealed that a number of construction companies had bulk-booked flights for 20,000 Indian labourers to b e taken out of the USE – either to go home on long-leave or to be redeployed on other projects.
However, the UAE government has so far been able to give official figures as to how many people working in the construction industry have lost their jobs.
Top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia may not be hit as severely as Dubai because it dwarves its neighbors, boasting a 25 million-strong population to sustain demand, executives said.
Meanwhile, the economy of Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, is set to expand 10 percent in real terms this year, the minister of state for energy and industry said this month.
“There is a huge opportunity in Saudi Arabia for housing, a real demand for middle-class housing,” said Khalid Al-Zamil, managing director of strategic planning at Saudi Arabia’s Zamil Group.
Building companies with cash are also looking at taking advantage of between 30 and 70 percent drop in the rpice of building materials, added Ali Kolaghassi, vice-president of privately held Saudi Oger.
“It is time to take advantage ... Yes, there is a major slowdown in sales but this enables opportunities for developers who are solid and not leveraged,” he added.
ARABIAN BUSINESS