DUBAI // Young, ambitious and with a degree from the University of Southern California, he was one of the first Emiratis appointed to revolutionise Dubai Municipality.
Salem Mohammed bin Mesmar, assistant director general for the environment, health and safety control sector, has steadily risen through the ranks of the civic authority, but still remembers when he first joined almost 30 years ago.
“I had just graduated as an industrial and systems engineer from Los Angeles, California, and had returned to Dubai,” he said.
“I was looking for a job and passed by Dubai Municipality. They interviewed me on a Thursday and asked when I could join the team, and I started a day later.”
Mr Mesmar, 51, started work on August 2, 1986, as a development and follow-up officer at the municipality’s public-health department.
He was among the first batch of Emiratis to join the municipality after the government started encouraging locals to work with the body.
“At that time, Dubai Municipality had started a nationalisation scheme for locals and I was part of the first team of Emiratis who were young, serious, hard-working and wanted to give something back to the country,” he said.
“With other new graduate colleagues, we started a change in the municipality to improve Dubai.”
Until then, the municipality, which was established in 1954, had been mostly staffed by foreign workers.
“In 1985, most municipality employees were expatriates,” he said. “Nationals were few in number and we could count them. We were the first people to join Dubai Municipality’s public-health department. We started attracting other nationals.
“We worked with expatriates closely and were working very hard, day and night and on Fridays.
“We were bachelors and were eager to do something to pay back the Government, which had paid for our education.”
Known among colleagues as a soft-spoken, genial and dedicated official, Mr Mesmar’s first task was to find ways to freshen up the public health department.
“We made a lot of changes in operations, making documentation and reports, setting targets and mechanisms for follow-ups,” he said. “It is easy to give ideas but there is no point if there are no follow-ups.
“We started looking at other cities, such as Singapore and London, and I went back to the States to look for new ideas.
“What you see in Dubai today, we have had a part in it. We made changes to cope with what the Government wanted.”
In 1989, after three years of hard work, Mr Mesmar took his first holiday. “I took time off for 17 days to get married,” he said.
His dedication to his work paid off and he went on to hold several senior positions in the municipality. He became assistant director of the public-health department in 1990 and, five years later, became its director. He took on his latest role overseeing multiple sectors in 2008.
After nearly three decades at the civic body, Mr Mesmar said challenges continue to confront him and his department.
“Dubai is precious. The Government and Sheikh Mohammed are the guardians of Dubai,” he said. “As Dubai is looking forward to the Expo, things aren’t getting easy –but we are learning to cope.
“We have the Dubai Strategic Plan of 2015 and are now working as teams with the Dubai Health Authority, RTA and different councils. The changes that are coming are good for Dubai, the UAE and for our kids.”
pkannan@thenational.ae
