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Dubai's ruler sacked 9 senior officials because they weren't at work at 7:30 in the morning
Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the emir of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, has sacked a bunch of senior officials and ordered a major shake-up of the way the city is run after visiting government offices at 7:30 on a Sunday morning and finding that many staff members were not yet at work.
Al-Maktoum made an unannounced trip to a government office in Dubai, the city known for its huge skyscrapers and crazy wealth, this past Sunday — which is a normal working day in the UAE — and seems to have been disappointed by the lack of workers present.
After the visit, his government posted a video on Instagram of his making the trip and finding the office empty, an exercise a Dubai media official said was intended to "send a message," according to Reuters. You can see the video, showing al-Maktoum inspecting an empty office, below:
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Soon after the visit, al-Maktoum announced the forced retirement of nine of Dubai's most senior officials, all from the Dubai Municipality's executive management, including directors and assistant directors-general in departments such as legal affairs and planning, the UAE's state news agency WAM reported, according to the Mail Online. He thanked the officials for their services but said the emirate needed a new generation of leadership going forward.
Along with the trip to the office buildings, al-Maktoum also visited Dubai's international airport to carry out a similar inspection. This visit was also posted on Instagram:
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While the number of absences from the office early in the morning are likely to have influenced al-Maktoum's decision, the restructuring is also part of a broader movement in the Middle East to cut down on the number of bureaucratic workers employed, Reuters reports. This is being undertaken as a means of coping with persistently low oil prices, which have severely affected on the government finances of Gulf nations in the past year or so.
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