Page 480 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

Notes to Chapter Seven

feet of open storage and 39,000 square feet of warehouse storage. Seven
mobile cranes and three forklift trucks were available for both wharfs.
39 The power station came into operation in July 1961 on the Dairah side;
the capacity was then 6,400 Kw. In the following years essential
services, such as water and telephones, and the operation of Port Rashid
were also all organised on a commercial basis. Dubai Port Services,
which was given a charter by the Ruler and is directly answerable to
him, is expected to earn a reasonable return but does not have to recover
the original capital cost of the harbour.
40 Examples were Dubai Airport Services, Dubai Post Office and Dubai
Port Services, a subsidiary of Gray Mackenzie & Co. of Dubai.
41 One of the reasons for going ahead with building this airstrip and a
small administration building was that the Ruler of Sharjah, Shaikh
Saqr bin Sultan, had tried to put a tax on the gold which came into
Sharjah by air but was bound for Dubai.
42 The cost of reclaiming was sometimes as little as one thousandth of the
value of the land obtained after dredging was completed.
43 The step from land management and town planning to formal building
licences issued and supervised by the Municipality was an obvious one.
Previously the Ruler had to be consulted if someone wanted to put up a
new building, but as for the actual construction of the building and the
observation of safety or fire precautions, the owner was largely free to
handle this in any way he chose.
44 The exact figure of the census taken in Spring 1968 was 58,971
inhabitants. In December 1980 it was 278,440.
45 When India gained independence in 1947 it took several years for the
British government to re-assess the British policy towards theTrucial
States. It was decided to adopt some responsibility for their internal
security and to give financial and practical assistance for development
projects. See also, below, pages 319ff and Hawley, Trucial States, pp.
243ff.
46 In 1962 £100,000 Sterling capital for hospital improvement and £40,000
Sterling for recurrent expenditure were given by the British Govern­
ment. See also, below page 325.
47 Members of this committee included all the seven Rulers, Mr 'Isa Gurg
(longstanding Dubai employee of the British Bank of the Middle East),
Mr W.R. Duff (Director of the Customs Department), Mr Kendall
(Director of the Trucial States Development Office), Dr Ross (Maktum
Hospital) and the British Political Agent in Dubai. The committee was
disbanded in 1970.
There was an outbreak of smallpox in Dubai in 1967; vaccinations were
48
carried out by theTrucial States Council’s medical services, the Maktum
Hospital, and the Political Agency’s medical services, under the co­
ordination of the Council’s Health Adviser, Dr Asim Jamali.

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