‘Nat’l devt measured by transport system’
Kuwait faces huge problem of roads
KUWAIT CITY, April 15, (KUNA): Kuwait’s Acting Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Humoud Al-Jaber Al-Sabah said Monday that the scale of development in a nation depended on its ability to build a sustainable transport system that was of high standards and was feasible both economically and socially.
“The UN has given the issue of traffic upscale attention recently, regarding it for the first time an integral component of policies aimed at sustainable development and launching a decade-long 2011-20 plan aimed at encouraging nations to take necessary and unprecedented procedures to tackle traffic problems,” he said.
The remarks were made in a speech at a two-day international training workshop for employees of traffic departments read out on his behalf by the Public Traffic Authority’s Assistant Director General for Planning and Research Brig. Saleh Al-Najem.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior works hard to ensure limiting the scale of traffic problems and to improve its implementation of traffic laws, in cooperation with local civil society organisations and international bodies in order to learn from successful experiences.
Kuwait’s Public Traffic Authority has proceeded to form a national traffic data police system and formed, in collaboration with several ministries, a specific set of laws and a structure that were presented to the Cabinet in 2011, he added.
For his part, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) Managing Director for Government, Parliamentary, Public and Media Affairs Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled AlSabah expressed the view that the transport sector represents the backbone of economic and social development and that infrastructure, roads and railways on both the local and regional scales play a major role in easing the flow of goods and people.
Problem
“Kuwait currently faces the huge problem of roads that are unable to accommodate the number of vehicles — with the number of vehicles currently reaching double the capacity these roads can withstand and with an annually increasing growth rate much higher than executed projects can keep up with,” he said.
He went on to urge the need for a comprehensive national strategy on the execution of road and transport projects, including a clear-cut deadline for projects and an efficient assessment and evaluation monitor.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Planning and Development and State Minister for National Assembly Affairs Dr Rola Dashti said, in a speech read out on her behalf by the Director of Technical support at the Ministry of Planning Lana Abu Eid, that the General Secretariat for the Supreme Council for Planning and Development has already executed several fundamental projects in the country.
These include the assessment of the execution of projects and supporting infrastructure and transport projects.
The workshop, which has so far trained 550 people, is also a part of these plans aimed at building a workforce able to rise up to the traffic challenges of the present day.
UN Development Programme Resident Representative, Stein Hansen said most of the traffic problems that face developing nations are the construction of projects without the availability of experienced labour or maintenance for these facilities. He also mentioned other problems like the lack of planning, institutional coordination and a comprehensive strategy of clear-cut aims.
On Kuwait, he expressed confidence that 2013 would witness a transformation in steps aimed at solving the problem of traffic in the country, through the implementation of national strategies, the training of the workforce and the restructuring of its traffic department.