NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NAIIONAL
Inspectors keep watch on taxi drivers
ABU DHABI - MARACH 25: Taxi inspectors are to patrol the emirate’s busiest roads seven days a week, 24 hours a day, making sure drivers do not keep passengers waiting or drive aggressively.
Abdullah Sultan al Sabbagh, who was appointed general manager of TransAD, the taxi regulator, last month, said he would personally be paying surprise visits to franchise-holders, and that drivers of the both the newer silver and the older gold and white taxis could expect unannounced inspections.
Previously, inspectors had operated 18 hours a day, five days a week, taking the weekends off, Mr al Sabbagh said.
The changes are among a range of measures designed to shorten waiting times and improve safety and customer service scheduled to be implemented in the coming months. By September, for example, it should be possible to pay fares by mobile phone.
Passengers who lodge complaints will receive an SMS message telling them the complaint has been logged and will be followed up.
Other proposals include standard fares for limousine services in the emirate, wheelchair-accessible taxis, discount cards for the disabled, the elderly, those on social welfare and taxi drivers, and a shared-taxi programme for passengers to outlying areas such as Shahama.
TransAD already monitors speed through GPS tracking in about 2,000 of the newer taxis, some of which have been fitted with speed-limiting devices.
The dispatch and tracking centre launched in November, which allows operators at a central call centre to send the nearest available taxi to a passenger who calls for one, is another way in which the regulator can judge speeds. Drivers found to be speeding regularly face fines and possible suspension.
Mr al Sabbagh emphasised that passenger safety was a priority for TransAD, and while he thought bad drivers made up only a small percentage of the total, poor road habits could be attributed to many of them having been recruited from abroad and not being familiar with driving in the UAE.
Some taxi drivers travel at high speeds on city streets and engage in aggressive manoeuvres, including tailgating.
He said he had instructed the franchise-holders to start “filtering out” bad drivers once the fleets had reached their quotas by the end of this year.
The emirate’s seven franchises, each with a target of 1,021 taxis on the road by the end of the year, are recruiting drivers from countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines.
So far, they have registered 3,372 silver taxis since the service was launched in Nov 2007, while 1,780 of the older gold and white taxis, owned by individuals, have been removed from the streets.
In total, there are about 9,800 taxis in the emirate. Mr al Sabbagh also said the regulator was prepared to put more taxis on the road. “Seven thousand is not enough for Abu Dhabi. It requires about 10, 000
Dubai police fine surfers
DUBAI - MARCH 25: Surfers at a beach in Umm Suqeim were fined this morning by police who said they were endangering swimmers.
About a dozen surfers were fined Dh200 each on the beach near the Burj Al Arab, though there were also reports that those fined included people who were only watching and had not been in the water themselves.
Driving licences were confiscated from those people who were given tickets, with the promise that they would be returned once the fines had been paid.
“It seemed pretty heavy-handed,” said Jason Offord, 38, who has lived and surfed in Dubai for five years. “There were guys getting fined just for having boards in their cars.”
The raid will dampen hopes of finding a way around official objections so that surfers and swimmers alike can enjoy the beach safely. Some surfers have proposed a flag system to indicate when conditions were more appropriate for surfing than swimming.
Mr Offord said: “I know some of the surfers are sitting down with the municipality to try and work out a way of sharing the beach between swimmers and surfers but nothing has happened yet.”
Surfers also claim that, far from being a hazard, they regularly save swimmers who get into trouble.
“In the last five years I’ve personally rescued around half a dozen swimmers who have got in to trouble in that area,” Mr Offord said. “With the waves and currents there are some areas where it’s actually pretty dangerous to swim.”
Signs on the beach warn that surfing is banned in areas designated for swimming. A rope placed about 50m out to sea has in effect turned the entire beach into a swimming-only zone.
“When it first appeared nobody told us what it was for. A basic flag system and a sign saying ‘swim between the flags’ would solve the problem and be much safer.”
Mohammed Abdul Rahman Hassan, the head of marine environment and wildlife section at the municipality, said that surfers violating the beach rules would pay penalties.
“There is a signboard on the beach that clearly states that surf boards are not allowed in swimming area. It is violation of the rules if they continue to surf in such areas.”
He said that the action had been the result of repeated complaints by swimmers.
Mr Hassan added that the coastal management section of the municipality was considering a designated area for surfers.
GCC calls for delay of common currency
UAE - MARCH 25: Representatives from the GCC secretariat want to delay releasing the Gulf’s common currency.
The call, made at the GCC Banking Conference in Manama yesterday, is the first formal recognition that the original deadline of Jan 1 next year to have a common GCC currency in circulation is no longer feasible, a point many analysts have stressed over the past year.
Although the GCC states still plan to complete preliminary steps to prepare for introducing the common currency by December, the process will not be finalised until a dedicated GCC monetary council is created towards the end of this year.
“As soon as the monetary council is ratified by the member states, one of its tasks is to set the new timetable for introducing the physical currency,” said Nasser al Kaud, the deputy of the assistant secretariat general for economic affairs at the GCC.
But Mr al Kaud said the GCC expected to make some progress this year towards a framework that would allow the currency to circulate between banks in a virtual form, before it takes physical shape.
Analysts say the process is likely to mirror steps taken by the European Monetary Union before the introduction of the euro.
“We are hoping that by 2010 we will have the accounting unit, the name, and the value in place,” Mr al Kaud said.
The monetary council would also be responsible for deciding the location of a GCC central bank, he said.
Analysts said that while the delay was inevitable, it was not welcome. “The delay was expected but they should be telling us when the new deadline is,” said John Sfakianakis, the chief economist at Saudi Arabia British Bank. “Having delay after delay is not good for the union, nor is it good for its credibility to the outside world.”
Deciding the location of the central bank may be difficult, given that nearly every member state is likely to want to host it.
Since all GCC states are also likely to want to name the new currency after their own, some commentators have proposed that the currency be called the khaliji, Arabic for “the gulf”, rather than the dinar, dirham, or riyal.
Economists say the financial crisis is not helping the process, given the instability it has introduced into the region’s banking system.
Policymakers will prefer to delay the creation of the monetary union so they can focus on addressing slowing growth and credit shortages across the region.
“When the barn is on fire, you don’t start rebuilding the house,” said Eckart Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “To make it possible, they will need more political will.”
But Mr al Kaud said the financial crisis had not stopped member states from trying to achieve similar inflation rates to ease the transition to a common currency.
With inflation throughout the region falling, analysts said one of the key hurdles to achieving a union had been removed.
In December, the GCC heads of state ratified the monetary union agreement, which outlined the goals and process that will eventually lead to the common currency.
At the time, the Gulf leaders repeated that they would aim to have the new currency in circulation by Jan 1 next year, saying that any delay in the process would have to be announced later.
The road to monetary union in the Gulf has not been without some difficulties. In 2007, Kuwait surprised other member nations when it de-pegged its dinar from the US dollar. Oman also threw the project off track in 2006, when it decided it would not join the monetary union next year.
The monetary council will consist of two bodies, a board of the GCC’s central bank governors, and an executive body that has yet to be appointed.
Today, all six GCC central bank governors are expected to speak at the GCC Banking Conference, where they will receive questions from an audience of regional bankers.
Footballers sentenced to death for murder
SHARJAH - MARCH 25: Two professional footballers were sentenced to death yesterday for the fatal stabbing of a man last year.
The Sharjah Court of First Instance passed the sentence on three Emirati men, including the two Sharjah Club players, one of whom also played for the national team.
The court sentenced seven other men to prison terms of one to three years for conspiring in the murder and for obstructing justice.
Halimi Abdul Azim, a senior court official, said the judgment came after several months of hearings.
The three judges in the case condemned FK, the national player; MJ, his Sharjah Club teammate; and MK, FK’s brother, for killing their neighbour, JJ, on April 15 last year.
According to police files on the case, the three overpowered JJ during a fight in the Riffa area of Sharjah. JJ was thrown to the ground and stabbed in the face with a knife.
Ismael Abu Ezza, the Sharjah attorney general, declined to comment on the sentences.
In a statement signed by Mr Abu Ezza when the case was first referred to court, he said: “The three intentionally killed JJ as they engaged him and stabbed him with a knife. They stabbed him in the face four times that resulted into serious wounds that resulted into his death.”
The statement said the other defendants watched the attack but did not stop it.
MK also was charged with being drunk at the time of the attack and with trying to flee the country after the crime to avoid arrest.
SK, who was not present during the attack, was charged with helping MK in his attempt to flee – a plot that was foiled by Sharjah Police, who arrested the men.
Abdul Hamid al Kumity, the lawyer for the victim’s family, said after the sentencing: “Justice has finally come.”