2,459 suggestions from staff and customers during 2nd half of 2010; DM honours feasible suggestions

Dubai Municipality on Wednesday held a special ceremony to honour the employees who contributed feasible suggestions under the "Have Your Say" Suggestions Scheme of the civic body. It was the 12^th such ceremony, where Municipality staff members and customers who had submitted ideas and suggestions that would enable developing the work in the Municipality.

Eng. Hussein Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality, who delivered the inaugural speech in the ceremony, said the Municipality has always been keen to find and activate appropriate channels for the participation of internal and external customers for submitting ideas and express views.

"The Higher Committee for Suggestion Scheme was formed in 2000, so as to establish procedures and systems as an encouragement to submit suggestions and to be a tool and a means to stimulate innovation and attract suggestions by internal and external customers and appreciate the contributors," he said.

"The Suggestion Scheme launched by the Municipality was a programme with the involvement of everyone on whatever we do to improve. This schemed has evolved significantly since its inception in 2000, as the number of suggestions received during the second half of 2010 was 2,459 suggestions," Lootah pointed out.

"The scheme opens doors to freedom of creativity and coming up with ideas that can be applied, not just admiring, in order to ensure a decent life for this generation and future generations. The scheme also aims to provide useful suggestions that serve the goals and objectives of public interest and to confirm that this scheme is one of the most effective programmes aimed at improving the level of services provided by the Municipality, which also include benefit for employees and the external audience who are receivers of the services," he said.

"It is also aimed to consolidate the foundations of partnership between internal and external customers in the operations for improving the administrative, social and environmental standard in the Emirate of Dubai," said Lootah.

He added that it is part of the Municipality's keenness to contribute to the application of the principles of total quality and continuous improvement of working methods to ensure quality services and products.

"It is also an emphasis on the principle of active participation of all by highlighting the potential capabilities and creative ideas, and contributes to the rationalization of expenditures in order to save time, effort and money. We also want to encourage a spirit of cooperation by providing the opportunity to benefit from the experiences and ideas of everyone, and simplify procedures, and shorten the time, speed up the response, improve organizational performance, and enhancing the participation of all sections of the society in different processes to improve the services available in the city, and achieving the satisfaction of both internal and external customers," said Lootah.

Pointing towards the lessons learned from the Suggestion Scheme at the Municipality level, he said it has created a sense of competition among staff of all categories, built working teams and committees for new projects designed by the employees, integrated ideas and solved problems in different ways, encouraged creativity, innovation, helped to move away from routine methods in the implementation of tasks, used the simplest ways to provide services, added new services to raise the level of services, encouraged staff to see the latest experiences, techniques and practices in their field, and gave every employee full confidence in providing ideas and increasing staff loyalty," said Lootah.

A total of 32 suggestions were honored during the ceremony, out of which 12 were material tangible suggestions and 20 were moral suggestions. The tangible suggestions contributed in achieving material results such as savings or income to Dubai Municipality and the other group of suggestions had a significant effect in raising the performance level of the organization.

Among the honoured were Khater Hassan Al Nuaimi and Ahmed Mohamed Saleh (Finance Department), Shoaib Mohammed Al Awadhi and Nora Abdo Al Safari (Public Health Services Department), Maryam Bin Fahad (Customer Relations Department), Farah Ali Al Zarouni and Hind Al Rahma (Dubai Central Laboratory Department), Mohammed Bashar Hafiz (Sewage Water Treatment Plant Department), Khalid Bakhit Al Mas (Contracts and Purchasing Department) and Yasser Al Haj Abdullah (Assets Management Department).

The honoured among suggestions of moral value were Eng. Hamdan Khalifa Al Shaer, Director of Environment Department, Khalid Ali Bin Zayed, Director of Municipality Centres Department, and Mohammed Ahmed Al Louz, Head of DM Call Centre in the Customer Relations Department.

Also honoured were Salim Ahmed Al Ablam, Mohammad Sharif Farouq and Ali Abdullah Al Jaroodi (Waste Management Department), Saeb Adil Ashneneh and Mufid Mustafa (Sewage Network Department), Abdul Aziz Al Khaja and Ali Zayed Al Busaidi (Finance Department), Sajan John (Environment Department), Abdullah Mohammed Al Nadhari, Amina Ahmed Arif (Municipality Centres Department), Imad Jandali Rifai, Amani Mohammed Al Souri (Public Health Services Department), Tahseen Rasheed Harbou, Ahmed Jouda, Tariq Jaafar and Mahmoud Yassin (Sewage Water Treatment Plant Department), Muath Manna (Information Technology Department) and Abdul Rahman Sayed and Ahmed Ali Elian, Abdul Moneim Syed Attiya (Dubai Central Laboratory Department).

Among the external customers who were honoured were Dawood Ragheb Al Dahoudi, Yousif Al Ali, Khalid Sayed Ahmed, Mona Obeid Al Zabi, Mahmoud Abdo Nasser, Essa Abdulrahman Al Shaami and Ali Ahmed Mashail.

Among those honoured for the most number of participation in the Suggestion Scheme from customers were Somayya Ahmed Abdullah, Basil Najib Al Obeidi and Saeed Saif Bin Touq.

The best suggestion coordinator among the employees was Alaa Zaki Badruddin (Sewage Water Treatment Plant Department), and the best customer complaint coordinator was Samira Ahmed Ghanem (Buildings Department).

The organizational units were also honoured for their outstanding efforts to make the Suggestion Scheme a huge success. They included Sewage Water Treatment Plant Department, Municipality Centres Department, Financial Auditing Department, Finance Department, Corporate Marketing and Relations Department and the team from the Advertising Section.