Page 423 - Bahrain Gov annual reports (V a)_Neat

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RAFAA MUNICIPALITY, 1956

From the Report of the Chairman of the Council.
This new municipality which deals with East and West Rafaa had a successful year.
The revenue was Rs 68,000, an increase of Rs 27,000 over 1955. Included in this total is
Rs 40,000, being the subsidy from the Government which was increased from Rs 20,000 to
Rs 40,000.
The most important work which was carried out was the completion of the new road
connecting the two towns, running from near the Girls’ School in West Rafaa to the edge of
East Rafaa. It cost Rs 18,000.
His Highness, who lives in West Rafaa, presented the municipality with another lorry to
enable town cleaning to be more effective and gave a grant of Rs 25,000, which was not included
in the budget. This sum was spent on building a market, 11 shops and a coffee shop which
augment the income of the municipality. It would be more satisfactory if, as in other places,
all public markets were municipal.
At the end of the year the municipality had a reserve fund of Rs 13,600.
During 1956 the electrification of East Rafaa was completed and progress was made in
the work of installing electricity in West Rafaa. Street lighting has been provided and owing
to this the municipal expenditure is likely to increase, a request has been made by the Municipal­
ity for a larger subsidy to cover this new responsibility.
The increase in revenue from house and shop taxes indicates development in the two
Rafaas, in East Rafaa 80 licences for building new stone houses were issued and permits for
25 new shops were approved.
The budget for 1957 anticipates revenue Rs 65,500 and expenditure amounting to Rs
76,500. The largest item is town cleaning, Rs 24,800. The sum of Rs 5,000 has been allocated
to the cost of opening new roads through the congested part of the town.

SUNNI WAQF DEPARTMENT, 1956
From the Report of Shaikh Atiatallah bin Abdel Rahman, Director of the Department.

Much of the Waqf property consists of date gardens which, w“hen they were dedicated
produced a substantial income. Rents of date gardens have been dropping since shortly after
the war partly because the people who used to work as tenants are now more profitably em­
ployed elsewhere and partly because dried dates are no longer a popular food, though fresh
dates still have a good sale. The Arabs say that they now prefer biscuits and chocolates to
dried dates. During 1956 there was a drop in the income from rents of gardens which the
Department attributes to the decrease in water and the lack of competition by tenants to rent
the gardens. The committee fears that if its revenue does not improve it will be unable to
complete a programme of improvements to Waqf property which it began during the year, nor
will it be possible to increase the stipends of the mosque officials and others whose salaries are
derived from Waqf funds. The committee decided that unless conditions improved they
would sell certain unproductive Waqf property and spend the proceeds on building on some
land which they own near the Manama cemetery which is a valuable building site.
The following was some of the work which was carried out during the year :
Four old mosques were demolished and re-built and repairs were carried out in eight
mosques and three Waqf buildings.
A minaret was added to the A1 Gassab mosque and a new mosque was built at Rafaa.
Fans were installed in the Manama Jama mosque.
Various shops, garages and rooms were built on Waqf property and additions were made
to existing mosques.
Again the chief benefactor to the department was His Highness who provided funds for
much of the work which was done.