Special needs societies may receive free power

Societies and associations catering to the special needs population may not have to pay electricity and water bills if a new proposal gets approved. The proposal has been made by a group of parliamentarians in attempt to erase the burden of electricity and water bills for societies that support differently-abled individuals. According to the proposal, the societies should be completely exempted from paying the utility bills.

“The welfare of the special needs population of the country is of great interest to the Kingdom. Enabling their care could mean supporting the societies that support the disabled,” the explanatory note of the proposal mentioned. “Exemption from the electricity and water bills for these societies will directly benefit the people with special needs,” the note stated. Reportedly, senior MPs including Parliament Speaker Fawzia Zainal have signed the proposal. A number of societies supporting special needs citizens have welcomed the move, stating that such a step would be of great help to them. The burden of high electricity and water bills has been a hot topic of discussion in recent weeks. Citizens and residents have complained that utility bills this year have been extremely high in the past few months.

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, has directed the National Audit Office (NAO) to carry out an investigation into the ways of calculating electricity and water bills. This came as he chaired a meeting of the Government Executive Committee, at Gudaibiya Palace. The move aims to ensure that there are no technical and procedural deficiencies in the water and electricity billing mechanisms The move comes in the wake of the statement issued by 30 MPs demanding EWA to scrap the current mechanism adopted to calculate the bills on a daily basis, which has resulted in “doubling the bill amounts”.