Word of the organising committee
Dr. Ibrahim al Rahbi, Director General of Human Resources in Muscat Municipality gave the forum`s word, expressing the pleasure of Muscat Municipality to host both Municipalities under one umbrella.
Alrahbi said that although four years have passed since the first forum, Muscat Municipality has experienced many strategic challenges during that period, perhaps most notably the release of Royal Decree no. (38/2015) issuing the Muscat Municipality Law, and the Royal Decree no. (39/2015) adopting the organisational structure of Muscat Municipality which gave it a prestigious personality and more financial and administrative independence, in addition to the terms of reference entrusted to it. Most notably developing policies and preparing comprehensive strategic plans for Muscat Governorate in the field of Municipal work and in coordination with the competent authorities.
He also added that issuing Muscat Municipality Law was a milestone in the progress of municipal work in Muscat governorate. That strategic shift has been accompanied by an executive change represented in subordination of the Municipality to the Tender Board and to the State Audit Institution which eventually required a plan to cope with that change.
For the administrative development, Muscat Municipality is currently seeking to implement a number of projects. Prominently, the Municipality strategic plan and its identity project. Other projects include the job classification and description plus the document management system and the content information which is hoped to be launched early in 2019. This system will make a quantum leap in the development of work methods and the e-transformation for the administrative contact at both levels internally or externally.
Session one
The first session of the forum was chaired by Eng. Nassir Ali al Hina`i where a Korean delegation gave a visual presentation about the cheonggyecheon river and the hanging parks in the city of Seoul.
Session two
The second session was headed by Dr. Abdulhakim Al Farsi, Director General of the Office of Chairman of Muscat Municipality. In the session H.E Mr. Salim bin Musallam al Busaidi, undersecretary of the Ministry of civil service for administrative development presented a paper on management of human resources development in the ministry. Dr. Salih al Hammadi assistant director of the national strategy for urban development spoke about Oman`s long term strategy for urban development. The third paper was about Lean Method adopted by PDO company in developing the administrative operations.
Session three
The theme of the third session was on the strategies developing the municipal field headed by Eng. Issa Salim al Riami, Director general of Muscat Municipality in Al-Amirat. Dr. Hanan al Jabriyyah who is director assistant of the strategic planning in Muscat Municipality presented a paper on the Muscat Municipality strategic plan, reviewing the objectives of the project on preparing the appropriate studies and research programmes to measure the organizational performance.
Dr. Ibrahim al Rahbi, Director General of human resources in Muscat Municipality presented a paper on the human resources strategy. The paper discussed the possible programmes to improve the services provided by the directorate in accordance with the quality management system. The third paper reviewed the challenges affecting urban planning in the wilyah of Suhar presented by Dr Ramadan Mahmoud Ramadan Khalil, an expert of planning in the Office of the Director General of Suhar Municipality.
Second day sessions
The second day sessions has shed light on "Financial Planning and development of services" which will include a paper on "Programmes and performance budgeting", in addition to another discussing "Updating addressing data in providing a sustainable municipal services". The second paper entitled "The Importance of documenting procedures for Sustainability of Development".
The fifth session covers a theme on the technical services and infrastructure where many papers will be presented like; "strategic traffic and public transport in the governorate of Muscat", and "Applying the Lean methods in the management of building permits", and the third on "the role of law in supporting a sustainable urban development and challenges".
The sixth and last session of the forum will present three papers discussing the recent challenges of urban development. The first will deal with the health affairs sector, the second will be about the prominent urban challenges faced by the service directorates and the last paper will cover the most notable planning challenges and their implications for the implementation of road projects in Muscat Municipality.