Dubai Municipality has organised a ceremony entitled, "Together, Let’s Innovate" to honour employees who submitted innovative suggestions under the DM’s Suggestion Scheme.

The corporate suggestion scheme, with the slogan, "Have Your Say", picked up 89 winning ideas which were implemented by the civic body, resulting in performance enhancement as well as material savings and income for the municipality.

The municipality has been organising annual celebrations to document the winning suggestions and honouring employees from different departments who come up with creative ideas. Employees have been rewarded for winning ideas which have a significant impact in reducing expenses.

The municipality registered intellectual property rights in the Ministry of Economy for 26 ideas of its employees in 2016. The Knowledge Management Department in the municipality follows up on the ideas and helps any employee who wishes to register the patent for the ideas with the Ministry of Economy, getting a certificate of intellectual property right.

Speaking on the occasion, Hussein Nasser Lootah, Director-General of Dubai Municipality, said that the municipality made a savings of AED18.859 million through the suggestions submitted by its employees during the first six months of 2016 as part of the scheme. The municipality received 17,519 suggestions during the period.

Lootah said that the total revenue and savings from the application of the suggestions system in 2015 and 2016 amounted to AED26,159,056. "The Suggestion Scheme, which was launched by the municipality in 2000, is a programme that involves everyone in the improvement of everything we do and it has grown significantly as we received 101,297 suggestions from its inception to 2016," said Lootah.

Mohammed Al Louz, Acting Director of Knowledge Management Department, said that since 2007, the municipality has made savings of more than AED92 million.