120 Boats Face Removal Beside 20-Year Idle Plot

TDT | Manama

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About 120 licensed boats kept on land at Muharraq Port have been issued notices or told to leave while a 3,790-square-metre plot beside them, handed to an investor for a boat-owners’ scheme, has sat fenced and empty since 2007.

Muharraq Municipal Council chairman AbdulAziz Al Naar said the land should now be taken back, arguing that fishermen were being squeezed for space while the promised scheme had never been built.

‘It has been fenced since 2007 and no one has benefited from it,’ he said. ‘Neither the investor nor the fishermen have benefited. How can land remain like this? Where is the oversight?’

Al Naar warned that forcing boats out without giving owners somewhere else to go would simply create another problem.

He said many would end up along Shaikh Khalifa Highway and Airport Avenue or outside homes, leaving boat trailers piling up in residential neighbourhoods.

Owners could then face another round of violations because boat trailers are not allowed to be parked in residential areas, he said.

Around 500 boats are based at the port, on land and in the water, according to Al Naar. About 120 licensed boats kept on land have been issued notices or told to clear the area, while around 20 are among the first facing removal.

He said Muharraq Port caters for roughly 70pc of Muharraq’s fishermen and boat owners.

A Muharraq Municipal Council site map identifies the fenced land beside the port measuring 3,790.633 square metres.

Al Naar said the plot was given to a Bahraini investor around 2007 for a scheme meant to serve boat owners.

Nothing has been built.

‘From 2007 until today, he has done nothing, and you are still leaving it with him,’ Al Naar said. ‘Why has the land not been taken back?’

He called for the agreement to be ended and the plot made available for another scheme, including parking and services for boat owners.

‘We are calling for the land to be taken back so it can be opened for investment,’ he said.

Al Naar also said the inspection drive was unfair, arguing that licensed, working boats were being singled out while broken and rusting craft had been left untouched for years.

‘The inspection process is unfair,’ he said, adding that the way it was being carried out was provoking fishermen.

He said some boats with valid permits were being issued notices while abandoned craft had remained at the port for five, six or seven years without being removed.

‘There are boats that have been broken and abandoned for six or seven years,’ he said. ‘They were not fined, removed or dealt with, yet licensed boats are being told to leave.’

Al Naar described the approach as arbitrary, saying owners were being ordered out without marked parking bays, another site or a workable plan for where their boats should go.

‘Organise the process. Create parking spaces and put solutions in place,’ he said. ‘You cannot simply tell them to get out.’

He also questioned towing charges which, he said, could leave owners paying BD80 to private recovery operators rather than a BD20 government fine.

Al Naar said the port needed firmer management and fairer treatment of boat owners, rather than clearing licensed craft while unused land and abandoned boats remained beside them.

He also raised security concerns, saying the port fence had previously been breached and boat equipment stolen.