SAB to issue new irregularities report related to public funds

Kuwait Army ranked 4th among Gulf force

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 15: The State Audit Bureau (SAB) will soon issue a new report on the irregularities related to public funds in various government agencies, reports Aljarida daily quoting informed sources.

Sources said these irregularities should be avoided in the next financial year or the agencies should provide proof of developments thereon and the committees formed in order to solve the irregularities.

Sources disclosed the report will be accompanied by the detailed annual report prepared by SAB which will be submitted to the Council of Ministers and the Parliament by the end of September in accordance with the law on establishing SAB.

Sources added there were many irregularities during fiscal 2017/2018 but the government agencies showed commitment in dealing with these irregularities, considering some addressed more than 80 percent of observations registered against them in the past years. Sources affirmed the officials were willing to cooperate in order to address the most important observations.

Sources said SAB recommended the formation of commissions of inquiry to look into public fund irregularities, and it even requested for selection of members from outside governmental bodies to guarantee transparency.

Meanwhile Kuwait’s military has been ranked fourth in the GCC, 14th in the Arab world and 88th in the world, reports Al-Rai daily.

This rank puts Kuwait in the middle of the third quarter of the list that includes 136 countries in the annual ranking of Global Firepower (globalfirepower.com) which specializes in military and weapons affairs.

In accordance with its annual custom of determining the level of army force of each country, the classification was based on more than 55 criteria that take into account all factors. It is not only based on trade-offs on the number of troops and equipment, but also on many other considerations such as extent of technological development applied by each army in its combat systems, the diversity of its armaments and the level of stability enjoyed by each country economically and financially.

In the Gulf, the Kuwait Army came fourth after the armies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman, which globally ranked 26, 56 and 79 respectively. Bahrain and Qatar ranked fifth and sixth respectively in the GCC after their Kuwaiti counterpart, and ranked globally 97 and 100 respectively.

Statistics issued by the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program (MGRP) and the executive branch of the state on national labor appointments disclosed that the number of Kuwaitis working in private sector has increased by almost 98 percent since 2001, reports Al Qabas daily.

It also showed that MGRP employed 1,662 Kuwaitis when it first started operation, and the number has doubled to reach 14,219, indicating a significant change in number since 2006 with over 10,000 national personnel that stabilized at 28,780.

Four years later, the number of Kuwaiti personnel in private sector is 57,520. They reached the peak in 2014 with a total of 74,078 personnel and dropped to 67,127 this year.