Ensure housing for village, city: Premier

Manama

The Cabinet session, chaired by Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa at the Gudaibiya Palace yesterday directed the relevant sides in the Kingdom to provide sufficient food supplies, and intensify inspection and control campaigns to ensure that prices were not manipulated and food products met the health and safety requirements in view of Ramadan.

 The Cabinet urged Muslims all over the world to be inspired by the values of the Holy Month of Ramadan and draw lessons from them regarding solidarity, unity, compassion, harmony and peace to preserve the Islamic Nation’s unity and strength.

 During the session, the Cabinet lauded HRH Premier’s patronage of the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the new Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa Cardiac Centre, noting that the new medical milestone would bring about a giant leap forward in the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases.

 Concerning housing, the session reviewed the efforts to achieve the government’s strategy in this regard, including the efforts to expedite the implementation process of housing projects. In this context, HRH the Prime

 Minister issued instructions to ensure that housing projects cover cities and villages across the Kingdom. “Every city or village should take its fair share from housing projects to preserve their social fabric.”

 The session also allocated one million Bahraini dinars to combat Red Palm Weevil over the next five years, and decided to ban the import of palm trees from countries suffering from the Red Palm Weevil or other palm pests.

 In this regard, the Cabinet reviewed on-going efforts to preserve the Kingdom’s palm trees and protect them from the Red Palm Weevil. It was informed about the measures taken so far to treat the affected palm trees and the precautions to protect the others, as outlined in the memorandum submitted by the Minister of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, Essam Khalaf.

 The session also reviewed terms and conditions of granting employees or workers with a disability, with a disabled relative of the first degree under their guardianship, paid two- hour rest a day as stipulated by Law 59 / 2014 amending Article No. 5 of Law 74 / 2006 with respect to Care, Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons.

 The Cabinet reviewed a draft edict submitted by the Ministerial Committee for Legal Affairs in this regard.

 The bill was referred to the Ministerial Committee for Social Services,

 Communication and Media and the Ministerial Committee for Legal Affairs for further study.

 The session reviewed a number of Ministerial reports, including reports submitted by the Foreign Minister on the outcomes of the 135th GCC Ministerial Council meeting, the Finance Minister on the annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank Board of Governors and the 26th meeting of GCC Agricultural Cooperation Committee.