Page 151 - Bahrain Gov annual reports(V)_Neat

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Houses and Shops. There was a great deal of building activity both in the centre of the
town, in the bazaar and in the suburbs. A noticeable feature was the number of new small
houses, consisting of three or four rooms and a compound, many of them being built by persons
having building loans from the Government or from the Bahrain Petroleum Company. There
has been a great improvement in recent years in the Style of building of small houses. Rooms
are well lit, very often metal windows arc used, and floors arc tiled or cemented. Licences for
the following new buildings were issued by the Municipality : 147 stone houses, 98 shops,
129 garages, 19 barastis (palm branch huts). In the previous year, 1372 licences for 100
barastis were issued. At the end of 1954 the town register showed the following :

Residential Commercial
Stone houses .. 4,195 Shops 2,862
Small 2-room stone houses 206 Store sheds 69
Flats, above shops or garages .. 789 Coffee shops 66
Barastis .. 2,294 Restaurants 26
Garages 123
Bakeries 51
Car repair shops 19
Engineering workshops 3
Khans or hotels 10
Every year more barasti dwellings in the towns are being replaced by stone houses ; this
is partly because the public have become nervous of living in barastis owing to the numerous
fires. Although the number of barastis is decreasing yet the number of fires appears to be
increasing and fires are almost invariably in barasti dwellings. Another reason for more stone
houses is that more people than before now own small plots of land and if they own the land
they build houses ; if they rent the land they build barastis.
From the record of the doings of the Manama Municipality during the year it appears that
its activities were strictly confined to routine work such as town cleaning, etc. In past years,
when Municipal revenue was much less than it is now, but when costs were considerably lower,
the Municipality was a very active body. During recent years the Municipality has become
lethargic. This is the cause of much complaint among the townspeople, but though people
complain about the inactivity of the Municipal Council they cannot be persuaded to show the
least interest in Municipal elections.

MUHARRAQ MUNICIPALITY

(From the report by Ibrahim Khalfan, Secretary of the Municipal Council)
Finance.
4 months of 1953 1954
Revenue. Expenditure. Revenue. Expenditure.
1,35,981 71,270 2,13,298 2,79,970
In the 16 months under review the Municipality had a deficit of Rs. 1,960/- though there
was an increase in revenue from both municipal house tax and shop tax and from most other
sources of income.
During the 16 months 2,234 permits for building or repairing stone houses and 249 permits
were issued for repairing barasti huts. There were 109 unoccupied houses in the town at the
end of the year ; this was about half the number which were unoccupied in the previous year.
At the beginning of the year the system of collecting taxes on shops was changed. Formerly
shops were graded into different categories with a minimum tax of 2 annas per month and a
maximum of Rs. 2/- per month—not an excessive amount as being the sole taxation for which
the owner was liable. The new system is based on the rental value of the shop on the scale of
2 annas in the rupee. This same system has been used for many years in Manama.