OFFICIALS have expressed concern after it emerged Bahrain is spending a third of its municipal budget on cleaning services.

International experts have been brought to come up with ways of reducing the bill, which amounts to BD20 million a year.

The Municipalities and Agricultural Affairs Ministry wants to find a new approach to the problem by recycling waste and curbing littering.

Bahrain’s National Cleanliness Committee has tasked internationally-acknowledged consultants to negotiate new contracts to replace ones signed with Gulf City Cleaning Company and Sphinx Services, which are due to expire within 18 months.

“People have to understand that there is no government support towards the cleaning bill and everything is now coming completely from municipal coffers,” said committee chairman Yousif Al Ghatam, who is also Northern Municipality director-general.

“So from the ministry’s BD60m spending, BD20m is going towards paying cleaning bills.

“That amount spent on cleaning will not be changed this year or the next, but we have to come up with changes to the way cleanliness is being dealt with.

“We don’t have conservation strategies, recycling is done voluntarily and littering is common.”

Mr Al Ghatam said it was hoped a new cleaning strategy would be in place by 2015.

“Well-known cleaning consultants have been hired to revise existing cleaning contracts and replace them with new ones and one of the recommendations is that there will not be unlimited work for whatever company is awarded contracts, but daily quotas specified,” he said.

“This means that we will have an average weight per household that can’t be exceeded and if that’s the case then they will have to pay as extra.”

Cleaning companies awarded contracts will also be obliged to introduce recycling.

“Cleaning companies will have to come with coloured bags that divide food, wood, glass, metals, etc,” explained Mr Al Ghatam.

“The black colour will continue being used for food, while the other colours will be stated in the draft cleanliness law that is currently being revised by the Cabinet.

“In a pilot phase that started in March and continued until the end of last month in the Northern Governorate we managed to separate 10,380kg of recyclable material and that’s a good start as we work on changing the concept of whatever is thrown out can’t be reused.”

Mr Al Ghatam said Bahrain was also ready to crack down on litterbugs.

“We started off with awareness campaigns across the board and are now imposing municipal fees and it will be changed into fines and jail sentences if the new bill gets approved by the National Assembly,” he said.

“Bahrain has the potential to become an example for cleanliness in the region in similar fashion to Singapore in south-east Asia or Switzerland in Europe.

“We just need to plan thoroughly, taking into consideration the population expansion and people’s attitudes for us to reach our target of zero litter in the streets by the end of 2015.”
mohammed@gdn.com.bh