Sharjah: Children playing football on the grass in parks and buildings being infested with insects were among the many complaints Sharjah Municipality received on its emergency hotline.
Other complaints made to the emergency hotline were about bachelors living in residential areas, foul smells emanating from restaurants, and expired food being sold in supermarkets.
A municipality spokesman said yesterday that residents and business owners had made more than 8,400 calls to the emergency hotline in the first half of this year.
Nada Saeed Al Suwaidi, head of public relations at Sharjah Municipality, said: "In the first six months of 2010, the municipality received 8,434 calls on its emergency hotline 993.
"Our records also show that during the year 2009, we received a total of 12,184 emergency calls that were related to issues of pest control, broken water pipes, hygiene and poisoning," she said.
Al Suwaidi said all calls had been referred to the municipality's departments concerned. She said the authorities had responded immediately to complaints by handling the source of the problem.
Strengthening trust
"Some of the complaints we received included children playing football on the grass in parks, buildings being infested with insects, bachelors living in residential areas, foul smells coming from restaurants, and expired food being sold in supermarkets," she said.
Al Suwaidi added that other complaints were about broken water pipes, plus what people said was the extremely high prices of certain consumer goods.
"The municipality pays great attention to the complaints received by the hotline at the emergency office with the aim to strengthen the trust between the public and the municipality," she said.
The operator who receives the complaint on the hotline number 993 is instructed, according to an administrative circular, to immediately lodge the complaint with the department concerned.
