Dubai Municipality enforces building control measures to boost precautionary protocols against COVID-19

Dubai Municipality has enforced a series of building control measures in the emirate to reinforce precautionary protocols against COVID-19. The measures form part of broader efforts implemented under the leadership’s directives to safeguard the health and safety of all segments of society.

The civic body has issued a set of circulars and guidelines for preventive steps and intensified cleaning and disinfection procedures in construction sites and workers’ accommodations. The Municipality stressed the need to abide by the circulars to ensure the highest security and safety for all construction workers and members of the community.

The circulars also include guidelines on transport and movement controls to and from construction sites and the procedures to be followed inside workers’ buses. They also outline the protocols related to the prohibition of workers’ movement outside the project site and the categories within the construction sector that are exempt from movement restrictions.

The Municipality has intensified monitoring and inspection of construction sites to ensure all preventive and precautionary guidelines are implemented and instructions in circulars are followed. A total of 50,000 inspection visits were conducted in 12,331 under-construction buildings in the last two months, apart from visits conducted in response to emergency reports in Dubai.

Mandatory precautionary measures in construction sites include: wearing protective masks and gloves, providing sterilisation equipment in multiple locations at the site, measuring the temperature of workers before entering the site, maintaining physical distancing and avoiding gatherings, ensuring workers keep a safe distance between each other while travelling in and disembarking from buses, conducting continuous sterilisation of work sites and project extensions, avoiding overcrowding in temporary and permanent elevators, providing dedicated waste containers on site, providing protective clothing for workers in project warehouses, distributing timings for workers’ breaks to ensure physical distancing, ensuring office workers at the site maintain physical distancing, and providing disposable plates and cups.