H.E. Eng.
MarwanBin Ghalita
Director-General of Dubai Municipality — a career built inside the institutions that run the city.
Real Estate Strategy 2033
A ten-year strategy for Dubai’s property market — targeting a third of residents in home ownership, transactions toward AED 1 trillion and a far larger contribution to GDP.
Real-Estate Tokenisation
The region’s first programme to register property title deeds on blockchain, with VARA, the Dubai Future Foundation and Sandbox Dubai.
6005AQARI Platform
Remote real-estate registration and services brought to residents by video call and messaging.
Home First
Reform of the Dubai Building Code — flexible, expandable Emirati family homes.
City Inspector
An integrated municipal inspection corps of 63 Emirati inspectors across 14 technical fields.
Smart Municipality Eye
AI and drones monitoring 52 million m² of the city’s green spaces and public assets.
Tasreef
Phase-two expansion of the stormwater network — AED 2.5 billion, serving 30 areas against extreme rainfall.
Deira Stormwater
A AED 500 million, 60 km drainage network protecting thirteen areas of historic Deira.
Khor Al Mamzar Beach
A new stretch of public waterfront opened as part of the city’s coastline programme.
Three decades building the institutions behind Dubai’s growth.
A survey engineer by training, H.E. Eng. Marwan Ahmed Bin Ghalita led the Real Estate Regulatory Agency for close to seventeen years, then the Dubai Land Department, and now Dubai Municipality — responsible for the city’s infrastructure, housing, planning, inspection and public realm.
His work has moved from the survey benchmarks of the city’s early growth to long-range strategy, digital services and the physical systems a growing city depends on.
Full biography →
What he
oversees
Six domains under one municipality — the physical and civic systems a city of some three-and-a-half million residents depends on every day.
Principles
Institutions, not individuals
Build systems — a registry, a regulator, a municipality — that outlast any single tenure.
Delivery over announcement
Judge a programme by what actually reaches residents, not by its launch.
The city as one system
Treat land, property and municipal life as a single civic fabric.
Offices
held
Dubai MunicipalityDirector-General · 2025 —
UAE Football AssociationPresident · 2016 – 19
Federal National CouncilFirst Deputy Speaker · 2015 – 19
Al Nasr ClubChairman · c. 2011 – 16A career in
institutions
Three decades, two emirate-scale entities and a run of national roles — from a survey bench in 1994 to the leadership of Dubai Municipality.
“The Home First initiative reinforces Dubai Municipality’s commitment to a flexible and sustainable urban planning framework.”
“Innovation is the cornerstone of future-ready services.”
Distinctions
Recognition across public administration, regional influence and academia — a selected record, not an exhaustive one.
In the
press
Office of the
Director-General
Correspondence is handled through the official channels of the Government of Dubai and Dubai Municipality.
Dubai Municipality ↗