Capital Secretariat budget hiked by BD3 mn

Manama

Considering the extra areas that have been added to the Capital Governorate lately, the Capital General Secretariat Council Members have agreed to hike the general budget by BD3 million in their routine meeting convened yesterday.

Chaired by the council’s Chairman Mohammed AL Khozaee, members saw the need to increase the general budget from BD12 million to BD15 million, as a total of 51 blocks have been recently added to the jurisdiction of the Capital.

Financial and Legal Committee Chairman Ahmed Binhindi clarified that the increase is brought to cover the additional projects and to overcome the current deficit in the secretariat’s budget.

“If no action is taken about it, the existing deficit will worsen and would be hard to cover. Because of this, the budget of maintenance works has shrank by 65 pc, which will definitely harm the work of the secretariat,” Binhindi said.

As reported earlier, the Central Governorate was dissolved as per a Royal Decree last September, dividing its nine constituencies among the remaining four governorates. Capital Governorate had a lion’s share of the redistributed areas, which included parts of Isa Town, Tubli, Sitra and Nabih Saleh.

Council members also discussed several other matters during their meeting yesterday, including the establishment of several public facilities and parks in different parts of the governorate, in addition to withdrawing the license of a traditional coffee shop in Bilad Al Qadeem, for violating the conditions of serving Sheesha.