Okaz newspaper

THE Shawqiyyah branch municipality in Makkah has demolished 35 buildings established on land owned by the Presidency of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques.

It also razed building foundations and random water tanks whose owners did not have legal deeds to construct them on those plots.

The municipality said it did what it was supposed to do within its duty not to allow random and underdeveloped districts tarnish the image of the city.

It added that it demolished the illegal buildings also to protect the properties of the presidency.

The chairman of the municipality had said nothing would daunt them from doing their tasks to put an end to all violations and excessiveness without any kind of delay.

This remains to be a point of view. However, the construction of 35 buildings, the digging or roads and the planting of trees casts doubts on what the chairman had said and falsifies his claim that the municipality would carry out its duties without delay. These buildings were not constructed overnight. Their foundations were not laid down in an hour or so. If the municipality was keen on doing its duties without delay, it would not have allowed any building to be constructed on any piece of land without a formal deed. It would not have needed to demolish the buildings with the help of other government departments using expensive equipment.

It would not have needed to busy itself or the other government departments wasting its time and theirs on the dismantling of the buildings, which should not have been there in the first place.

The blame for this indolence of keeping a blind eye until the illegal buildings have mushroomed in the city is not limited to the Shawqiyyah municipality alone. The Presidency of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques, which owns the land on which the buildings were constructed, is also responsible.

The presidency should have moved earlier to protect its land and not to wait until the buildings were completed to ask it to be given back its properties.

What happened in Al-Shawqiyyah happens in many other places. Many violations will be committed when the government departments ignore their duties at the right time and place.

These violations will be difficult to correct and the demolitions will be carried out wasting public money.