Sheikh Mohammed: Arab region has too many politicians, faces ‘crisis of management’

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s Prime Minister and Vice President, has spoken out against the mismanagement of resources in the Arab world, criticising politicians for their lack of action.

In a series of messages on Twitter on Saturday, Sheikh Mohammed – also the Ruler of Dubai – said most of the political discourse in the Arab world is a “waste of time and a corruption of ethics”.

“Whoever wants to accomplish something for his people should work in his backyard. History is the witness,” he said, adding that “great achievements speak for themselves” while many politicians only give “empty speeches with no value for their words”.

He stressed that the region’s “crisis of management” was not due to any lack of resources.

“China and Japan have no natural resources and see where they have arrived. I look at countries [in the Arab region] that possess oil, gas, water and human resources, but lack development. They do not even provide access to basic services such as roads and electricity to their people,” Sheikh Mohammed tweeted.

“We have a surplus of politicians in the Arab world and we have a shortage of administrators,” he said.

He urged regional politicians to focus on helping their people, solving crises rather than “fabricating” problems, and building achievements instead of “demolishing them”.

“The politician manages the economy, manages education, manages the media, and even runs sports.

“The real political function is to facilitate the lives of the economists, academics, businessmen, media and others,” he added.

Sheikh Mohammed’s remarks come after he announced last week that low employee satisfaction ratings at UAE federal government agencies were “unacceptable”.

Sheikh Mohammed said on Twitter that he had been informed of the results of satisfaction surveys at 40 federal government agencies.

“Satisfaction in some quarters is 39 per cent. We have five destinations with a satisfaction rate of 60 per cent! These ratios are unacceptable,” he said. “Employee satisfaction [is] key to customer satisfaction.”

Read more: UAE VP says low employee satisfaction rates at gov agencies ‘unacceptable’

In 2016, he also fired top officials at Dubai Municipality after conducting a surprise inspection and finding none of them were in the office.

Read: Dubai ruler says dismissed Municipality officials had stopped working