ABU DHABI // A woman whose dog was killed and incinerated without her knowing has welcomed a new system to identify dead animals found in Abu Dhabi.
Nouf Al Qasimi’s pet dog Emile was killed in January after running away from the family home in Al Bateen. It is thought he was hit by a car.
Emile’s body was found on the road by workers who misread his collar, thinking it said “Email”.
The dog was taken to an incinerator at the Centre for Waste Management – Abu Dhabi (CWM) for disposal.
“I just fell apart when I heard this had happened, because I couldn’t get a collar or a body or anything,” said Ms Al Qasimi. “He was just gone.”
The CWM will collaborate with the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital (ADFH) in trying to differentiate between strays and missing pets by scanning for microchips and checking for details of ownership.
“It is a new social responsibility, which I hope will help a lot of people,” said Margit Muller, the director of the falcon hospital, who hopes the plans will be introduced next month.
ADFH, the only hospital authorised to neuter strays, has a database of all animals it treats.
If the microchipped animal’s details are not found, the hospital will contact the city’s veterinary clinics to find its owner.
“This is so important because a lot of owners get really distressed if they don’t know what happened to their pets,” said Ms Muller. “Now, at least we can inform them if something happens.”
Ms Al Qasimi said she hoped the procedure would offer closure to owners, who until now had been left wondering what happened to their missing pets.
“It is devastating to be in the dark,” she said. “This was a soul and spirit. You don’t just throw him away.”
The Emirati had owned Emile for 10 years after finding him half-dead in a rubbish skip while living in the US.
Ms Al Qasimi took him home, nursed him back to health and brought him to Abu Dhabi, where he lived with her for the past eight years.
She only discovered her pet’s fate when, after realising he had escaped, she spoke to workers in her neighbourhood who told her an animal matching Emile’s description had been found dead on a road and taken away.
“I asked if the dog’s collar had any contact details, to which they replied it had an email address, not a phone number,” Ms Al Qasimi said. “That’s when I realised they thought it said ‘Email’.”
Omar Al Shubaki, a contract manager at CWM, said dead animals found in the capital used to be sent to an incinerator in Al Ain after staff checked for a microchip and notified the owner.
Mr Al Shubaki said he did not know why Ms Al Qasimi had not been notified.
Under the new scheme, all dead animals found in Abu Dhabi will be disposed of in an incinerator at ADFH.
Mr Al Shubaki said the initiative was a step in the right direction to "raise standards in Abu Dhabi".
molson@thenational.ae
This article has been amended since publication. Ms Al Qasimi is an Emirati and not an American-Lebanese expatriot as originally stated.
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Completed an electrical diploma at the Adnoc Technical Institute
Works as a public relations officer with Adnoc
Apart from the piano, he plays the accordion, oud and guitar
His favourite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach
Also enjoys listening to Mozart
Likes all genres of music including Arabic music and jazz
Enjoys rock groups Scorpions and Metallica
Other musicians he likes are Syrian-American pianist Malek Jandali and Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou Khalil
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.”
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