CONFIDENTIAL CALL ON MINISTER OF WORKS 1. When I called on the Minister of Public Works, Karim al Haremi, on 10 December the following points of interest arose. 2. He was happy that he now had a single Ministry to control. The Ministry of Development had grown out of hand and something had had to be done. None the less he wondered what was happening in the Government. The Sultan had informed him that he would be Minister of Works and that he would be a member of the Development Board. However, in the event, the list published by the Diwan did not include him as a member! Khalfan Nasr had also been omitted originally but had now apparently been added. He for his part did not intend to make any approach and would sit tight. 13. The Development Board, Karim said, was largely composed of "Yahya's men" and these, together with the merchants who were in league with them, were now | the strongest force in the capital. He mentioned Qais Zawawi, Mohammad Zubair and Abdul Haliz specifi cally as "Yahya's men'' and said that Shanfari would go along with them. People were now talking rather a lot about Yahya, who was very powerful, and his men. 4. Karim said he had expected that housing and public services would come under his Ministry, parti cularly as the Ministry of Communications and Public Services had now been renamed Ministry of Communications alone. However, Abdul Hafiz had, so far at least, managed to retain what he had had before and in addition had apparently acquired water resources. 5. Karim noted that Yahya Omar and Ghassan Shakir had been in the Royal Box during the National Day CONFIDENTIAL
