Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation "Kahramaa" won Al-Hariri Arab Award for Operation and Maintenance 2006, granted by Arab Institute for Operation and Maintenance for the best services system in the Arab world. Eng. Essa Hilal al Kuwari, Electricity Networks Affairs Director, has received the award for Kahramaa from Eng. Sameer Jamjoom, Projects Manager of Saudi Bin Laden Group, the official sponsor of the celebration, under the auspices of Lebanese Prime Minister and attendance of Dr. Mohamed Al-Fouzan, the Director of the Arab Institute.

The Arab Institute for Operation and Maintenance has allocated such award in 2005 to encourage good practice in the implementation of operational and maintenance works in the Arab countries to promote levels of the workers and companies and encourage the initiative and innovation of public and private sectors. The Awards presented at a dinner party organized by the Arab Institute for Operation and Maintenance in honor of delegations participated in the Fifth International Forum for operation and maintenance, held in Beirut from June 12 to 15, 2006.
Eng. Essa Hilal al Kuwari, stated that "Kahramaa" added another award to its ever-growing list of achievements. It all came as a result of teamwork under the patronage and support of H.E. Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Second Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy and Industry, Chairman of the Board and H.E. Issa Shaheen Al Ghanim, the Vice Chairman.

It is worth mentioning that Electricity Network Affairs, has applied for the competition which the Institute announced earlier this year along with many corporations and companies from different sectors of several Arab countries.

The paper introduced to the competition committee included methods applied regarding the corporation’s performance and services. It covered the adopted procedures and advanced techniques applied to manage operation and maintenance of electricity networks at the State of Qatar as well as the approved periodic and preventive maintenance programmes of Electricity Network Affairs that led the competition committee to choose the file presented by "Kahramaa" as the winner of Al-Hariri Arab Award for operation and maintenance 2006.

Furthermore, the paper includes concepts of managing maintenance through implementation of new and advanced techniques to promote the liability level and time average between interruption and restoring of transmission network and experiences acquired by "Kahramaa" in these fields, in addition to methods of reducing operational costs and measurements of expansion for network operational period applied on network basis as well as analyzing reasons for systems interruptions.

The paper presented suitable liability levels of network transmission, interruption and disconnection average of different parts of network transmission.
Kahramaa delegation headed by Eng. Essa Hilal al Kuwari, Electricity Networks Affairs Director included a number of Managers.

It is worth mentioning, that "Kahramaa" has won many awards including H.H. Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Makhtoom distinguished award for the "Successful Arab Management Experience" of the year 2001, the GIS (Geographical Information System) award achievements granted by the American Environmental System Research Institute in the USA of the year 2003, and the award of "The best GIS applications and practices" granted during GIS Conference in the Middle East and Africa which was held in Dubai 2004.

In the field of researches, "Kahramaa" won the 1st award in the 13th Gulf - Cigre seminar held in Oman 2002 for the best research titled "The Sub-station Automation, Kahramaa Experience", the award of excellence in the 14th Gulf - Cigre seminar held in Kuwait 2004 for the best scientific research titled "Operational Problems & Performance of Transmission Overhead Lines in Qatar", and the award of excellence during the 15th Gulf - Cigre seminar held in Qatar 2005 for the best scientific research titled "Aesthetic Design of  Transmission Sub-stations in Highly Loaded Modern Cities".

Arab Institute for Operation and Maintenance (OMAINTEC) was established in Beirut in 2003 in an attempt to respond to the need of organizing and unifying efforts to improve maintenance practices in Arab countries.

The most important activities of this Institute is issuing bulletins and specialized periodical magazine on operation and maintenance and establishing an annual reward for operation and maintenance under the name "Al-Hariri Arab Award for Operation and Maintenance" as being the 1st Arab award for individuals, corporations and companies .