Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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in. SAUDI GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE AND DECISION, AND POLICY-MAKING
PROCESS
At the top of the policy making structure is the King, who by definition commands a
great degree of control in all decisions. The King is aided by advisors and institutions all
of which form the structure of the decision-making process. The King presides over the
cabinet of the government ministries or Council of Ministers (CM), a legislative body
created in 1953. By 1975, the CM comprised twenty-three ministers heading the various
bureaucratic ministries, departments and agencies. 32 Several ministries and government
departments are vested with the responsibilities of making decisions of direct and indirect
impact on urban development. Despite the considerable purview of these ministries within
the areas of their authority, the King retains the final say and the ability to bypass the
system.
Beleaguered by the increasing urban problems, the government introduced the
municipality, an organization which was created to shoulder the responsibility of
establishing order in the built environment. It was a governmental institution that was
perceived as part of the central bureaucracy and received its financial strength from the
King. Under the Saudi political order, cities and towns are denied legal personality, that is
the right of denizens to.establish constitutional powers delimiting domains of authority
between the central government and the city. Since citizens are not required to render taxes
to the government, city politics were never considered. The traditional forms of autonomy
exercised by the city notables within the quarters were gradually eclipsed by the rising
power of the state, which supplanted them with government organs under its control. 33
The modern civic organizations created under the auspices of the state, such as the
municipality and the imarah (town's governorship), were administrative organs of the
central bureaucracy. 34
The government financed development of modern towns 35 and
therefore held ultimate authority over the form and scope of local control and
administration.
The emergence of concerted efforts at modern, comprehensive (national) planning
activity in Saudi Arabia since the late 1960s and 1970s emanates from the government
decision to shift to a modern diversified economic base. An executive planning board was
first established in 1960. A council of Minsters' Resolution No. 430 mandated its
replacement with the Central Planning Organization (CPO) in 1964. It was entrusted with