Muscat: The Office of Majlis Ash’shura held its seventh ordinary meeting for the first annual sitting under the chairmanship of Khalid bin Hilal al Maawali, Chairman of Majlis Ash’shura, on Tuesday.
During the meeting, the Office reviewed the minutes of its meeting with the Ministerial Coordination Committee, which was held at the headquarters of the Secretariat- General of the Council of Ministers. It also reviewed the ministerial responses to a number of parliamentary questions raised by members of Majlis Ash’shura.
The Office reviewed the response delivered by Dr Khalfan bin Said al Shueili, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning to a parliamentary question regarding planning controls for building on agricultural lands. In his response the minister stated that the regulation of residential plans and their distribution in the various wilayats of the Sultanate of Oman is based on systematic planning controls as Ministerial Decision (220/2023) made it possible to change the purpose of agricultural lands while underscoring the importance of providing the necessary services for residential schemes. He added that the regulations also permitted the establishment of agricultural projects provided obtaining an approval from the competent authorities.
Also reviewed at the meeting was a response provided by Qais bin Mohammed al Yousef, Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion to the question about the issue of wall cracks in new buildings. In his response the minister said that the ministry oversees and inspects construction materials products in coordination with the relevant authorities. The causes of cracks are many including the utilization of concrete mixture instead of ready-made mixture and failure to conduct soil tests prior to construction.
The Office of Majlis Ash’shura also reviewed a briefing request submitted to the Chairman of the Oman Investment Authority (OIA) regarding the financial and economic losses made by Fisheries Development Oman. It requested to inform the Majlis Ash’shura of the oversight tools for following up state-owned companies, the number of non-Omani employees, the Omanization rate registered by the end of 2023 as well as the volume of the financial losses recorded until the beginning of this year.
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