Tamm centres promise one-stop shop

Abu Dhabi: Western region residents will benefit from 100 per cent accessibility to government services by 2010, officials in Mirfa said on Tuesday.

The announcement was made at the launch ceremony of four state-of-the- art integrated government service centres in the region.

Called Al Gharbia, the region comprises of six cities: Madinat Zayed, Delma, Mirfa, Ghayathi, Silaa and Liwa.

Home to about 10 per cent of the population of Abu Dhabi Emirate, the 120,000 residents of the region had to travel hundreds of kilometres to access vital government services such as immigration facilities, traffic, registration of births and deaths and much more.

Taking this into account, the government in 2005 set up service centres, called Tamm, in each of the cities.

Tamm, which means 'done' in Arabic, is part of the Western Region Municipality's (WRM) strategic initiatives.

Full-fledged centres

These Tamm centres brought together several government departments under one roof, acting as a one-stop shop for residents to access services.

However, they were only temporary facilities. Now, taking the project into the next level, officials announced the construction of four full-fledged centres at Mirfa, Liwa, Silaa and Ghayathi at the cost of Dh 200 million. The facilities are expected to be functional by third quarter of 2009.

'Essential move'

"The new centres will enhance the accessibility of government services offered from the current 67 per cent to 100 per cent by beginning of 2010," Hamoud Humaid Al Mansouri, General Manager of WRM said, following the unveiling of the design of Mirfa's Tamm centre.

"This is an essential move for the municipality to build on the milestones achieved. Earlier it was extremely difficult for a resident to avail basic services," he said.

"For example, if a person living in Silaa wants something from the municipality or want to open a file at the traffic department, they had to travel 300-350 kilometres to do this. And sometimes they face more problems if their job is not done in a day," he told Gulf News.

Being a resident of Al Gharbia, Khalifa Al Mansouri, Executive Director, City Area Services Sector, said that he himself experienced issues because of low accessibility to government services.

"It is a big relief for the residents. Announcing these new centres clearly is a positive and significant milestone. It demonstrates the successes since the first opening in Madinat Zayed," he said.

New Tamm centres coming at:

Mirfa, Liwa, Silaa Ghayathi