SHARJAH // Police and school authorities have placed a ban on anyone with a criminal record driving a school bus.
The ban is part of a campaign to enhance safety and security. Drivers who have been in prison or convicted of any crime will be prevented from driving schoolchildren.
Other drivers will be required to obtain an additional driving permit in addition to their original operating licence.
"Every driver will have to undergo a one-week training, starting on November 14, to get this second licence," said Col Arif al Shamsi, the director of the Sharjah police traffic department. "The programme will aim to enhance the driver's skills, clarify how to deal with emergency situations and how to safely drop off and pick up students. From March 1 we shall be cracking down on non-trained drivers."
Buses have come under more scrutiny in response to a series of accidents, one of which resulted in the death of a child. Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority instituted 32 new regulations last September including specialised licences and speed regulators. The Ministry of Education said that all buses carrying primary school pupils would have to have supervisors on board to watch over them.
"Not all bus operators had safety measures in place, like putting up the stop sign," said ML Augustine, the managing director of Dubai's School Transport Services, which transports 48,000 students daily.
"Now they must conform to speed governance [and] everyone has uniform standards. It is compulsory."
Changes are also planned elsewhere in the Emirates. The Department of Transport announced in June that it would overhaul Abu Dhabi's school bus system. Though no details of the reforms were announced, the department said it would coordinate with bus companies, drivers, police and school regulators.
The Sharjah programme would come at a cost to prospective drivers, who will have to pay Dh500 to enter it. Police are expected to need three months to train all of the emirate's 3,000 registered school bus drivers. Authorities did not provide the number of current workers likely to lose their jobs for having criminal records.
Safety-related changes also extended to the types of vehicles used to transport students. Minibuses carrying 15 passengers will not be allowed as school buses and no licences will be given to their drivers, said Maj Khalid Ibrahim al Sharji, the training programme coordinator. There will also be no more approvals granted to rental-company buses or their drivers, he said.
School buses can carry 84 students maximum and must have two doors and a large mirror that shows children entering and leaving.
Though there must be a supervisor on board, opening and closing of doors will be controlled by the driver. The buses must be yellow with school names clearly marked and schools breaking the rules will be fined, Maj al Sharji said.
Mohammed Hussein, a bus driver with the Kamal private school, welcomed the rules, particularly those dealing with how to interact with students as he and his colleagues come into contact with numerous girls in the course of their duties.
"You know us drivers deal with students and some of them are girls," he said. "It's important for one to behave well and to be extra careful at work."
However, not all drivers were so supportive. A driver who preferred anonymity said they were already undergoing several training courses before starting their jobs and believed the newly mandated courses would only repeat what they already knew.
"I think it will make a lot of money for them," he said about the registration fees. "The careless drivers would continue having accidents after the programme."
Neglect has also been an issue. Aatish Shabin, aged three, died of an unknown illness after being left in a school bus overnight.
A year later, four-year-old Aiman Zeeshanuddin died of heat exhaustion and dehydration after being left behind in a private minibus hired by her parents to take her to school.
ykakande@thenational.ae
smclain@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Ramola Talwar Badam
Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
