NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL/WAM
New buses ready to hit the road
A bus pulls up on Airport Rd and Al Saada streets. Nearly 60 buses are to join the fleet this month. Philip Cheung / The National
ABU DHABI - APRIL 06: Nearly 60 new buses are to join the capital’s current fleet later this month, which should give commuters some relief from rush-hour crowding and reduce waits at bus stops.
The new buses will be put into service over the space of two weeks, Saeed al Hameli, general manager of bus transportation at the Department of Transport, said on Sunday
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The 59 vehicles from MAN, the German company, are parked in Musaffah waiting to be registered and insured, he said.
They are the first of 500 that will be added to the current fleet of 125 city buses and 30 suburban buses over the year.
The 12-metre-long, air-conditioned buses each cost Dh1.8 million (US$490,000) and can carry about 65 passengers, 34 of them sitting. Each one is fitted with a wheelchair ramp and five closed-circuit television cameras. With the arrival of the new buses, some of the current fleet will be shifted to suburban routes, improving the service to areas such as Musaffah, Baniyas and Shahama.
Mr al Hameli said the department aimed to increase the frequency of buses to the suburbs from one every 40 minutes at present to one every 20 minutes. It is also considering introducing an express route between Abu Dhabi Island and Musaffah, with passengers transferring between suburban and city buses at Sheikh Zayed Mosque.
Bus passengers spoken to on Sunday agreed there was a need for more buses, although they said the service was reasonably priced.
Mohammed Javed, a Pakistani working at Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, said he found the buses overcrowded during rush hours.
“If it’s for the long, long journeys, it’s difficult to stand and travel,” Mr Javed said.
Annaly Jungco from the Philippines, a senior supervisor at Habib Exchange, said she hoped for improvements to the service. “We need more buses especially in Hamdan Street: it is overcrowded always, especially rush hour,” Ms Jungco said.
The Department of Transport had earlier announced that 125 new buses would be in operation by the end of March, but the global financial downturn and pirate activity on the high seas pushed the delivery schedule back by about a month, Mr al Hameli said.
“All December and January [shipments] have been shifted to late January and February,” he said.
He said more buses would be arriving early next month. Getting the vehicles insured and registered and drivers trained had also taken longer than expected.
The department also on Sunday announced the signing of an agreement to make bus passes more widely available through kiosks run by the UAE Red Crescent.
The passes – called Ojra, meaning “fare” in Arabic – will be available at 25 Red Crescent kiosks at malls and other locations by April 12.
The department has been selling bus passes at a few locations since February but the deal with Red Crescent will increase their availability, Mr al Hameli said. More kiosks will be opened around the emirate as the service expands.
“The Department of Transport’s objective is to attract more users to public transport,” he told reporters at a press conference.
“Doing this memorandum of understanding work with our strategic partners such as UAE Red Crescent will increase the sales and will make the Ojra cards available for the public from their network.”
The department began charging for bus rides in February.
They were initially free after the service was introduced in the capital last June. Mr al Hameli said the department sold 10,500 of the Dh40 monthly passes, 3,000 of the Dh3 day passes and about 50,000 Dh1 single journeys in March.
More information on the bus services and routes is available on the 800 55555 toll-free number or at the website www.ojra.ae<;br>
Neighbours of 900 taxi drivers face parking nightmare
ABU DHABI - APRIL 06: It is tough having more than 900 taxi drivers as neighbours.
Just ask merchants and residents on Defence Road, near the Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal and in front of Al Wahda Mall, who say the hundreds of taxis parked in the area throughout the day and overnight have exacerbated an already serious parking problem.
They are demanding that Tawasul, the taxi company concerned, move its drivers’ accommodation out of the building they occupy.
The orange-coloured, 13-storey building houses more than 900 drivers from Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan. When The National visited one afternoon last week, there were 96 taxis parked around the block.
“At night I have to drive around for up to an hour to find parking,” said Raffi Panisales, 33, who lives next door to the Tawasul accommodation. “At night there are more than 300 taxis parked everywhere. This is an impossible parking situation and should not be allowed to continue.”
Aysar al Ghoneim, 50, owner of Al Wardi mobile phones, wants Tawasul to move not only out of the block of flats but out of the city.
“It’s as if there is a vertical labour camp two buildings down. Aren’t most labour camps in Musaffah?” he asked. “That is where all these drivers should be living. I have complained to the traffic police and to the municipality but no one takes any action against this company.”
Mr al Ghoneim said the parking situation was hurting his business.
“My faithful customers know to come in the morning or early afternoon if they want to find parking,” he said.
“I have seen people run into my store to buy something but then have to run out because they are blocking traffic in the car park. I see them drive around once or twice looking for parking, then they simply leave and don’t return.”
Yasser al Sawy, 29, of Al Attar Pharmacy, said: “These drivers should be moved to Musaffah or anywhere outside the city. All my customers complain about not finding parking here.
“When I come to work, I simply park at Al Wahda Mall and walk across the street. I just don’t bother trying.”
Many of the taxi drivers are unhappy with the situation as well, and say they would prefer to be in Musaffah, where there is ample parking.
“We too are suffering,” said an Indian driver. “We have to drive around for a long time to park. Sometimes I have to walk nearly 400 metres from where I parked to get to the accommodations building.”
The accommodation itself came in for criticism, too. An Egyptian driver said: “Each apartment is partitioned and has four bedrooms with six people living in each. With only two toilets in each apartment, it takes some co-ordination and co-operation to go to the bathroom, especially when the master bedroom, which has an attached bathroom, is locked. At that point, 18 people have to share one bathroom.”
He added that it was an old building with many problems. The lifts that sometimes do not work, for instance. He also expressed concern about the fire risk. “There are electric cookers all over the building. It is just a matter of time before a fire starts. Can you imagine trying to evacuate 1,000 people from that building? It’s a potential death trap.”
If there were a fire, he said, the parking situation made it unlikely that fire engines would be able to reach the building.
Neither Tawasul’s general manager, Abdallah Aj Kassab, nor TransAD, the taxi regulator, was prepared to comment, but Lt Abdullah al Tammimi, of the Civil Defence, said the number of people living in the building was a matter for the municipality to investigate.
“Certainly, having more than 900 people living in a 13-floor building would delay the evacuation process in the event of a fire. Regarding fire apparatus access, it would be difficult due to the number of cars parked illegally. But we always manage in co-operation with the traffic police.”
Omar al Hashemi, director of the municipal offices department at Abu Dhabi Municipality, said it was illegal both to build partitions and for more than three people to live in a one-bedroom apartment.
Mohammed el Sayed, 27, an Egyptian who lives next door to the building, worries about his wife and the families living in the surrounding area.
“Most of these buildings are occupied by families who shop at the stores at the base of the buildings,” he said.
“I have seen the drivers staring at my wife and other women who are walking by. It makes no sense to have 1,000 single men living here.”
ADCP?s Customer Care Centre to Cater to its Clientele Needs
Abu Dhabi, 5th April 2009 (WAM) - Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties (ADCP), the renowned Abu Dhabi based Property Management Company, has established a modern Customer Service Centre to cater to its clientele needs in Abu Dhabi.
Jasim Al Darmaki, the Managing Director of ADCP, stated "The residential units under ADCP are being rented through the Customer Service Centre by implementing innovative technologies to ensure saving time and efforts when renewing contracts, receiving complaints or notes and handling maintenance requests by our customers." Al Darmaki also pointed out that "ADCP's Customer Service Centre has placed high standards of quality management systems and processes to ensure that our customers and clients receive the highest standard of service. This was proven by the recently ISO 9001:2008 Certification awarded to ADCP. " ADCP's success represented by the ISO accreditation is only the result of implementing the government's wise directions to support the partnership between public and private sectors and encourage a prosperous and professional future for the UAE Nationals in this vital economic field.
ADCP now oversees more than 40.000 residential units in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and many other new projects under construction in collaboration with the Government of Abu Dhabi to meet the increasing housing demands in light of the construction boom the Emirate of Abu Dhabi is witnessing in the present time.
ADCP was established in January 2007 by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank to act as its property services subsidiary. ADCP's biggest project is a Property Management Agreement with the government of Abu Dhabi, which involves the management of 55 Million sq/ft of buildings.
Crown Prince: stand up to child abuse
ABU DHABI - APRIL 06: Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, has called on people to take a stand against child abuse after visiting a girl who had suffered horrific injuries, allegedly at the hands of her parents.
Sheikh Mohammed attended Al Mafraq Hospital with his daughter, Sheikha Shamma bint Mohammed, yesterday to see the critically ill nine-year-old.
In a statement, Abu Dhabi Police said the girl had been brought into hospital by her father, who lived in Bani Yas, bleeding and suffering from burns, with knife cuts and bruises over her body.
Her father had initially said the youngster had fallen off her bicycle, police said, but a medical examination confirmed she had been “severely abused”. The father and stepmother were subsequently arrested by police.
Sheikh Mohammed has asked the hospital to give close attention and care to the girl, who has been provided with a female counsellor by Abu Dhabi Police.
Speaking after the visit, Sheikh Mohammed said the “sanctity of childhood” was “an essential element of our culture”, stressing that the incident violated the UAE’s traditional values.
“It should also be alarming to everyone that an incident such as this could occur within our society, which has always placed such emphasis on the protection of children,” he said.
“All members of the community must speak out against abuse of this kind, and condemn any form of violence against children”.
An official at the Ministry of Social Affairs said the UAE’s first child protection law, a draft of which was announced last year, was under preparation.
Although children are already protected by law in the UAE, the forthcoming legislation would be the first specifically dedicated to stopping all forms of child abuse.
If the new law were passed, it would punish adults who failed to tell the authorities when they knew of children being abused, and it would create a hotline for children to report wrongdoing, among numerous other regulations.
Child abuse was often difficult to analyse because of scarce statistics, said Dr Rima al Sabban, a UAE-based independent sociologist.
Researchers and clinical psychologists said authorities were often reluctant to interfere in how people disciplined their children, and may fail to spot abuse. Cases of child abuse in the UAE could be reported to school teachers or counsellors but might never reach the courts, said Seher Mir, human rights manager for the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children.
“If you look at the issue globally, it’s under-reported,” she added, because abused children could be reluctant to speak up.
Hamad al Qawadi, a lawyer and legal consultant in Sharjah, said child abuse cases were “rarely” seen in court, and then only “in extreme cases where there are sex crimes or physical injury”.
Instead, he said, abused children were often taken to safe houses until the authorities were confident it was safe to return them to their parents. When this happened, he said, the children were monitored.
Etisalat may lower iPhone prices
UAE - APRIL 06: Etisalat will lower the prices of its Apple iPhone packages if given approval by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), according to a media report today.
The Arabic daily Al Khaleej quoted Etisalat’s chief executive, Mohammed al Qamzi, as saying the company had submitted a request to the TRA for a price reduction, but had yet to hear back from the regulator.
Etisalat’s pricing plans for the iPhone put the company at the top end of all international operators offering the device. Its plans are up to 50 per cent more expensive than similar deals in Jordan and Egypt, and more than double the price of comparable iPhone packages in the UK or Australia. In requesting permission for a price reduction, the company appears to be acknowledging demand in the market for a lower-priced offering.
The two UAE telecommunications companies must submit all pricing schemes for approval by the regulator, which has been keen to avoid a price war emerging between the deep-pocketed Etisalat and its newer competitor, du. Mr al Qamzi told the newspaper that a number of new pricing offers from Etisalat had been rejected by the TRA, and that the regulator had yet to make clear when the two companies would be able to engage in more direct competiton.
Since its launch in early 2007, du has captured about 30 per cent of the UAE mobile market, and now attracts the majority of new mobile customers. The company has long been clear on its strategy to target the budget-conscious segment of the market and has launched a number of discount price offers in recent months.