Page 410 - UAE Truncal States_Neat

The Formation of the Federation
One barometer for indicating the growth of the federal admini­
stration is the increasing federal budget. From the first budget of
1972 (Dh.200.9 million) to the budget of the peak year, 1977,
(Dh. 13,106.7 million) a sixty-fold increase was registered.143
Although in all these years the total budget funds could not be
disbursed because of a slow rate of implementation, expenditure
itself also rose between 1972 and 1978 from Dh.163.7 million to
Dh.7,007.6 million, a forty-three-fold increase. For Abu Dhabi State
the expenditure for the same years rose from Dh.1,735.6 million to
Dh.19,824.1 million. Ml
Another barometer is the increase in number of employees in the
federal administration from a few hundred in 1972 in the few
ministries already established, such as Foreign Affairs, to over thirty-
six thousand by the end of 1980, excluding armed forces and police.
The large and costly development projects such as airports, power
stations, desalination plants and harbours were initiated and
financed by the individual Emirates, so the federal government spent
less money in the early years on development than on services to the
increasing population.
All these indications show that the federal administration gradu­
ally took over an ever-growing share in public life throughout the
Emirates. In the initial years almost all services continued to be
rendered to the population by the existing departments in the
individual Emirates, or in the case of Abu Dhabi by the local
ministries, while the newly-established federal ministries con­
centrated on recruiting staff and laying down guidelines for eventual
unification, referred to as “federalisation".
Landmarks in this process were the abolition in December 1973 of
the Abu Dhabi cabinet and its replacement by an Executive Council
comprising the chairmen of the Emirate’s government departments;
the amalgamation in November 1975 of the departments of justice,
police, communications and information in the Emirate of Sharjah
with the respective federal ministries; and Ra’s al Khaimah and the
other Emirates following suit. After 1974, education, health care and
police in Abu Dhabi were progressively brought under the federal
ministries.
Other services, such as electricity and water, were provided
through the federal ministry only to 'Ajman, Umm al Qaiwain, the
east coast and the mountain zone. Ra’s al Khaimah, Sharjah town
and Abu Dhabi State maintained their independent organisations.
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