Saudi gazette report

THE Umm Al-Sulm neighborhood of south Jeddah has been suffering from the perpetual neglect by the authorities. The district lacks lit-up streets, mobile signals, Internet connections, asphalted roads, regular garbage collectors and street cleaners and many other basic amenities, according to residents.

"We have been living here for so many years and to this day our area is not provided with the most basic of infrastructures and services," one resident of the district told Okaz/Saudi Gazette while expressing his disappointment over the pathetic municipal services in the area.

The residents hope that the Municipality of Jeddah would soon find solutions to meet the demands for basic services in Umm Sulm and adjoining neighborhoods.

Saed Al-Zahrani said, "In nearly 20 years, the neighborhood did not see any development. It lacked many services. Among others, we suffer from frequent power cuts due to the heavy load on the substation that supplies electricity to the district. The frequent blackouts cripple our productivity and we are desperately looking for a solution."

Al-Zahrani attributed the main reason for the frequent disruptions in supply to overhead power lines. The electricity company has not installed underground cables in the area and power connections get affected in times of dust storms or rain. He also warned of the catastrophes waiting to happen because of the overload on power lines.

Khaled Al-Skeek said, "The streets of neighborhoods are in poor condition. No maintenance work was carried out in the streets for several years despite the collapse of the asphalt layer. Many of the internal streets have not been paved. We are forced to pay from our own pockets to carry out patch works on the roads. But the rain will destroy everything."

Al-Skeek says many of the streets in the district are not illuminated and they do not have sidewalks for pedestrians, threatening the safety of people. The conditions are quite bad especially on the road leading to the girls' school, which experiences traffic jams most of the time.

Tarek Mohammed said many of the abandoned houses in the neighborhood became waste dumpsters. He is afraid that they would soon become a security hazard as they provide a safe haven for criminals.

Ahmed Jumanan hopes the telecommunication companies would solve the issue of weak mobile signals and the disruption of Internet services in various areas of Umm Sulm. He called on Saudi Telecom to carry out regular maintenance of the landline service, which fails quite often.

He blamed the current telecom installations in the area, which are vulnerable to breakdowns. "The customer pays monthly fees, while the service provided does not match the amounts paid. People have become dependent on the Internet for most of their transactions," he said.