The Shoura Council is to take up the crucial bill for discussion on Monday.

JEDDAH – The Shoura Council on Tuesday approved the draft law for establishing district-level community development centers.

According to the draft, the district centers will be set up throughout the Kingdom with the objective of enhancing citizens’ prosperity and bolstering mutual cooperation and interaction.

The centers will enjoy legal status and will be under the supervision of regional councils, said Fahaad Al-Hamad, assistant president of the council.

The session was chaired by the council’s president Abdullah Al-Asheikh. Ahmad Al-Hakami, chairman of the special committee constituted to study the proposal of establishing district centers, read out the recommendations of the committee in this regard.

According to the draft law, which contains 22 articles, each district center will have a board of directors. The district boards will present their decisions and recommendations to the president of a council of district centers.

The board will have nine members, including district chief, three experts from the concerned agencies and five local residents.

The board will chalk out social, cultural, awareness and training programs and activities and will supervise their implementation. It will also propose and encourage cooperative projects among the residents in the district, and will exert efforts to solve societal problems among people of the district.

Meanwhile, the Shoura Council called for appointing an independent agency to investigate the causes for the delay in the implementation of economic cities.

It demanded the Economic Cities Authority to pinpoint the reasons why the Madinah Knowledge Economic City deviated from its basic vision of attracting knowledge-based industries. The council made the remarks while discussing the annual report of the authority.

Taking part in the deliberations on the report of the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) on Monday, several Shoura members called for carrying out investigations into the delay in implementing major SRO projects, especially the Haramain High Speed Rail project. They also demanded privatization of the organization.

The members underlined the need for intervention of the National Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) and other bodies to look into the causes of the delay in implementing the Haramain Railway project.

They said the delay had resulted in the doubling of the amount and duration of the contract. Abdulaziz Al-Otaishan, a member, said the SRO report did not mention the causes for doubling the amount of the contract for the first phase of the project.