Public institutions' negligence endangers people's lives

KUWAIT: The negligence of some public institutions is endangering people's lives. A resident of block 4 in Fintas has complained about wooden poles repeatedly falling on the street, a building and even on his vehicle. Abdullah Al-Tayeb told Kuwait Times he has lost hope in receiving help from the ministry in charge. Since last year he has witnessed more than one incident of falling wooden posts, which he first thought were for electricity.

"When I called the Ministry of Electricity and Water, they immediately came to the site to check the wooden post lying on the ground. They told me it is for the Ministry of Communications, as these posts were used for landline phones in the past. When I called the Ministry of Communications, they refused to come and did not even want to talk to me. A group of the residents then sent an official letter to the ministry in October, but nobody responded," Tayeb said.

According to him, the first pole fell in October, when a laborer of a building contractor hit it by mistake with his vehicle. "That post fell on the street. The residents gathered and pushed the post to the side of the road, and since then it remains in the same place. A month later, during the rainstorms, another post fell, this time on my vehicle. The ministry did not respond and even the municipality has not removed it till today," he rued.

Tayeb tried to contact the emergency line. "On the hotline, they transferred me to the police, who asked whether the post was blocking the road. When I said that we had pushed it aside, they did not come. Then the ambulance called me to ask if someone was injured - fortunately, no one was," he added.

Recently, another pole fell on a nearby building. "Nobody came to remove it too, and the residents pulled it off the structure. These posts are really dangerous, and one day some of them may fall on people walking on the street. These wooden posts are completely useless and the communications ministry should remove them. This problem has occurred in Fintas' block 4 and Mahboula's block 1," Tayeb pointed out.

By Nawara Fattahova