al-Raqqa’s municipality solved water problem, now bettering services

AMINA ALI / AL-RAQQA

The people municipality in the city of al-Raqqa has taken to providing services since the liberation of the city in November last year to meet the requirements of returning parents to their homes and clean the streets of the city of earthmounds and waste; moreover,  to rehabilitate the water and sanitation network, which worked to undermine the destruction.

In spite of the suffering that the municipality faced as a result of the lack of equipment and massive destruction, the People's Assembly continued its work inside the city of al-Raqqa and worked in full swing to serve the city and cleaned the streets and removed the rubble and waste left by the remnants of war with IS mercenaries.

The municipality began its work with 10 workers on November 1, 2017 in the area of ​​the Mashlab. Their role was to remove the earthmounds. On February 1, 2018, the number of workers in the municipality reached 360.

To learn about the most important work carried out by the People's Assembly in the city of Raqqa since the liberation of the city, the Hawar News Agency met with the co-chair of the municipality, Ahmed Ibrahim.

At the beginning of his speech, Ibrahim explained that his role was initially limited to the removal of earthmounds and the removal of rubble due to the shortage of workers in the municipality, but they expanded their work to include the whole city after the competition and raise the number of employees to 360 employees.

She pointed out that women had a key role in activating the municipality. She became the co-chair in all the offices within the municipality to take on the responsibility of building a new city and organizing women within the community and engaging in work after four years of darkness.

On the work carried out by the people's municipality in the city of al-Raqqa, Ahmed Ibrahim, noted that from the service side, they solved problems on private properties, investment in public properties, rehabilitation of the vegetables market and the slaughterhouse in terms of restoration and sanitation.

On November 1, a commission for water, rehabilitating and repairing water lines, removing waste and rubble from the main streets was formed and rubble in coordination with some organizations due to the importance of large water,

The first phase: repairs to the main lines with large diameters. The main lines were repaired from 800 mm diameter to 300 mm diameter. More than 25 fractions were documented in the water system by the water circle.

The second phase: The lines were repaired in the neighborhoods of Saif Al-Dawla, Abu Al-Hayef Street, Al-Mansour Street, 23 February Street, the old mosque area and all the neighborhoods inside the Old City Wall.

The third phase: The rehabilitation of the main lines in the area of ​​Basil Street, where the following neighborhoods are described: Al Rasheed Association - Basil Street - White Park - Savings Roundabout - Basel Roundabout - Train Street.

Ibrahim pointed out that during the reform process, they received support from the Kurdish Red Crescent, which secured poly-acetylene welding, while PIN organization supported the Water Committee with simple materials and accessories worth no more than ten thousand dollars.

In addition, the control department in the municipality has been activated and the following sections have been activated: (Supply, Technical, Environment, Health, Water and Protection Committee), and since their first day, members have undertaken their duties under specific directives and instructions to serve citizens and institutions in official tours. For the municipalities in northern Syria, the protection committee also protects the municipality building, the vegetables market and the parking garage.

The department of environment has equipped the garden of the building and planted trees and cut trees from the road between the Mashbalb and Bab Baghdad, Al-Rasheed Park has also been activated and the rubble that was inside it was removed as a result of clashes that took place in the region between the Syrian Democratic Forces and mercenaries, calling and planting trees instead.

Ibrahim explained that they had moved the garage from the iron market area to the garage adjacent to the vegetables market, where the building was equipped with a garage and the receipt of a car from the Department of Municipalities in northern Syria, and received 5 bulldozers.

As for the difficulties faced by the municipality, Ibrahim said, we suffer from the lack of financial means to cover the municipality's expenses and maintenance of the machineries because of the lack of collection of water and cleanliness, building permits and pavement works, the absence of cleaning machineries, the absence of heavy engineering machineries to repair the water lines, large mechanisms for transporting large random dumps within the city.

At the end of his speech, Ahmed Ibrahim appealed to all humanitarian organizations and supporting hands for the reconstruction of Al-Raqqa by providing support to people municipality in al-Raqqa and providing clean, engineering and service machineries.

J.O

ANHA