‘Major privatization role in development plan’

‘Not all hunky dory in Kuwaiti economy’

“Privatization is a modern economic philosophy with a strategy to turn a large number of economic sectors and social services that are not linked to the high policy of the state from the public sector to the private sector,” columnist and economic expert Hamed AlSaif wrote for Al-Shahed daily. “As a matter of fact, the state according to the modern economic concept should pay its concern to issues such as political, administrative, security and social which are linked to the state’s higher policy, but with regard to the other issues, these actually can be managed by the private sector based on the laws and systems that might be drawn by the state to organize this sector.

“In other words, the definition of privatization is shifting the property or management of an economic activity either partially or entirely from the public sector to the private sector.

“In this context, the privatization is a vehicle or an instrument to activate the blanket economic reform program with multiple axis that aim at reforming the economic situations of the pertinent state.

“Meanwhile, we know that the implementation of the privatization programs mostly coincides with the implementation of other programs which are parallel and in harmony with each other to such an extent everyone is working to keep abreast with the same public direction that shall conduce to the liberation of the economic sector from the public sector and award the same to the private sector.

“Given the above, privatization should keep in line with radical changes in terms of the concept or philosophy of its responsibility towards economic management as well as its political, economic and social role towards boosting the private sector’s economic participation.

“However, privatization process aims at exploiting the natural and human resources with greater efficiency and productivity by liberalizing the market and avoiding state intervention except in cases of extreme necessity and through specific tools to ensure market stability and reduce its volatility. The political perspective calls for the state to limit itself to areas such as defense, justice, internal security, social services, and external relations.

“Consequently, privatization here goes beyond the narrow concept confined to selling assets and property transfer to become qualitative and big economic, social and political transition in addition to a new philosophy for the role of the state towards the achieving of a better future in addition to the building of an entity for a sustainable and state civil states.

“However, this is a definition shared by many modern thinkers and contributes to solving many of the economic problems of any country. But the question here is, what we in Kuwait have in this connection?

“The Kuwaiti economy is undergoing major economic problems and imbalances because of the state’s ownership and administration of most of the state’s economy. It is an imbalance that is increasing, expensive and impossible to solve by normal means, or any development plan in the state administration.

“The defects are steadily increasing, becoming costly and could not be solved through normal manners or by setting up developmental plan to be managed by the state. This means the state-promised development plan will not achieve any results, it will increase economic and service problems, put the burden on the state and is expected to reach a dead end and does not achieve the aspirations of society and the construction of a modern civil state.

“Therefore, the issue of privatizing existing economic sectors must be considered prior to the development of any development plan for the country. Thus, the state will achieve two things: a huge income from privatization funds and the transfer of most local and foreign labor to the private sector through studied and legalized programs.

“Given the above, the state budget would have got rid of the direct funds to be added to the state budget and eventually achieve additional funds from the privatization process to be added to the country’s future generations which at the same time manages the main and important matters in the country and is monitoring the private sector with its regulatory bodies accredited to organize the process and achieve the desired results and purpose in the interest of this good country.

“We pray to Almighty Allah to help us.”

Al-Saif

“It is needless to say the case of Venezuela calls for concern and scrutiny by many countries which are mortgaging its future to a single natural resource, irrespective of the importance of this resource, particularly in the case of Venezuela,” columnist and professor of economics at Kuwait University

wrote for daily.

“However, according to the official statistics of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela is the richest state among OPEC members in terms of the volume of its oil reserves volume. But because of many years of a state of uncontrolled financial situation, the exaggeration in terms of banknotes issues and the rampant administrative and financial corruption rampancy which has reduced the country to the current situation has created the complicated crisis.

“In this connection, we say the repercussions of this state of affairs should actually constitute a lesson to be learnt by all countries which excessively depend on oil. In other words, I don’t think any of these states will be far from these percussions unless they hasten to ameliorate its resources and control the rhythm of its public finance.

“Venezuela, this oil-rich country is seen as one of the biggest OPEC members since for a long time it has held on the fifth rank in the world in terms of oil exports and moreover, since its oil revenues constitute as much as 95 percent of all revenues. Hence, its total dependence on oil has ‘killed’ the country in the face of oil prices collapse since the mid of 2014.

“In other words, the drastic drop in the oil prices, after many years of the weakness of the control on the state public finance, actually led to an accelerating collapse of Venezuela’s strong currency (sovereign bolivar) exchange rate vis-a-vis other currencies.

“Moreover, the country is currently suffering from high rates of inflation as well as the collapse of the purchasing power and this has resulted in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying the Venezuela’s economic crisis is complicated to such an extent the IMF has likened the crisis to the German crisis of 1923 and that of Zimbabwe in the first decade of the Third Millennium.

“Not just that, the IMF through its latest estimates say Venezuela will not benefit from the current improvement in the oil prices and as such its national output will continue to deflate during this year with high rates of inflation that shall reach up to 14000 percent so far.

“However, recently, it had revealed that Venezuela is likely to return even to partial privatization of the oil industry.”

“I remember proposing a bill on small enterprises for the youth during the 1992 Parliament. The idea came to me after I observed the experiences of Germany and Japan related to small enterprises after World War II, as well as the ‘Asian Tigers’ economy which strongly emerged in the early 1990s,” wrote for

daily. “Several MPs have adopted this bill, but Parliament ended before the bill was endorsed. When the parliamentary activities reconvened, the government took the concept of the bill and implemented it by establishing a fund of KD 20 million for small enterprises in Kuwait Credit Bank.

“Nonetheless, the initiative did not achieve the desired success in terms of establishing light industries similar to the ‘transistor’ revolution in Japan and Singapore and the emergence of industries for small motors and tools for spare parts in Germany.

“Unfortunately, this initiative has been greatly tarnished, as a small enterprise cannot be a grocery store or laundry shop or bakery or car garage – they do not make any significant contribution to the national economy or its development. The idea of small enterprises involves improving vocational skills, and supporting industries and logistical services.

“When the matter reached the point of granting $1.5 million to a grocery store or laundry shop or flower shop for funding their activities, it is considered as wastage of the public funds, due to which the response of Minister of Commerce and Industry Khaled Al-Rodhan came as a shock.

“There is a need to review the conditions and regulations for funding small enterprises in order to single out projects that are meaningful, artisan and industrial, instead of rendering the fund to be the source for funding the children of influential people in order for them to execute silly projects.”

“The Ministry of Interior is in the process of forming a committee to identify officers who own and manage commercial companies – a clear violation of the law. The names and functions of these officers will be determined and then submitted to the minister of interior. They have the option to either devote themselves to security work or manage their businesses,” columnist

wrote for daily. “This funny piece of news was published two-and-a-half years ago, during the deep incursion of ministry officials on millions allocated for the item on hospitality, parties and conferences. I remembered this news when I read what was attributed recently to an interior official implicated in the questionable expenses and that he is a trader who has been running a business for more than 10 years – the reason behind his vast wealth.

“Article 15 of Police Law No. 23 of 1968 prohibits officers from engaging in commercial activities. This is considered a blatant violation of the duties of police officers. The prohibition is more stringent if the officer sells, buys and leases to the police force. The questions here are: Was the supposed commission formed in 2016? Did it do its work? Has it identified the business officers and warned them? Or has this security news gone with the wind, replaced by legends and stories about preemptive strikes? Where are the ministry’s successive leaders in terms of pursuing the trade of their officers in every field? Where is the ministry in terms of applying the law on its leaders first?”

“Human life has basic principles governing its development and advancement stages. Whenever proper principles and moral excellence develop, civilization also advances and grows. But despite our Islamic civilization and other civilizations we can base on, we are in an era of a dangerous phenomenon which has started affecting the way we deal with each other and the moral standard that an individual is supposed to uphold is in a dive,” columnist wrote for

daily.

“We witness the spread of lies, fiddling, deception, breach of trust and all kinds of fraud like in what we say, exams, nationality and academic certificate. We see spread of hatred, malice, jealousy, embezzlement, bribery, theft, violation of rights, squandering of public fund, terrorizing the public by spreading rumors and fake news, rising number of depression cases, severing family ties and divorce, dishonoring parents, insults and even fights.

“These sick phenomena are considered the axes which destroy society and crash its culture and traditions that have been keeping the society together. Deterioration of moral standards is synonymous to collapse of the system of virtues, principles and examples which protect and preserve the society. With such a moral system, the society could breed a lost generation which knows virtues and morals only by name.”

“For many years, Kuwait has been considered as a cultural destination – the evidences of which are many and countless. One among them is the huge number of Arab intellectuals who have passed through Kuwait. Our country is also a cultural incubator with traits of religious moderation and freedom of opinion and expression. This is known to all and is tangible in reality,”

wrote for daily. “Recently, the State Minister for Youth Affairs and Chairman of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) Mohammad Al-Jabri affirmed the importance of preserving the message and top place of Kuwaiti culture to stay as an incubator for Arab intellectuals, writers and artistes. He said this during a meeting with the members of NCCAL.

“Al-Jabri’s words deserve appreciation as this is what Kuwait should strive for – to maintain its cultural place in all cultural aspects, because it is indeed a pioneer and an incubator of intellectuals and writers.

“Honestly, we all know that Kuwait’s cultural role in recent times has declined a bit. We all do not know the real reason behind this decline, which is seen even in the level of cultural publications. Social media could be a reason behind this decline.”

“In the last few days, the Malaysian authorities officially announced the charges against Rosama Mansour, the wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razzaq,”

wrote for

daily. “Rosama Mansour was arrested for confiscating people’s money from taxes and for her involvement in money laundering as part of a scandal involving multi-millions in which she, husband and many officials are involved.

“I compared the serious actions taken by the Malaysian government with the actions taken by our government concerning appropriation of the public funds and the rights of retirees for pension.

“Also, international newspapers show news and photographs of his relatives and children in which they were showing off their multi-billion-worth real-estate deals with a behavior contrary to all customs.”

“There are painful stories about the sufferings of people around the world. Why do people always have to suffer especially when the countries have vast resources? Is it because of corruption or poor governance?,”

wrote for daily.

“Venezuela is rich in oil, mineral wealth and rivers, but its people have become impoverished because of the state’s poor management of economy. The prices of commodities are so high that some people resort to finding food from waste bins. There was an assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro because of the state of poverty among the Venezuelans.

“Zimbabwe suffered a similar situation. The former ‘bread basket of Africa’ has become a basket case. Former president Robert Mugabe’s disastrous handling of the economy and his willingness to resort to violence to maintain power ended up destroying one of Africa’s most promising states.

“Also, there was an armed sectarian conflict lasting 30 years between the Sunnis and the Shiites in Pakistan. The Philippines lives in misery, as there are 7,641 islands hit by 22 hurricanes each year and with active volcanoes. In Cuba, Guatemala and many other countries, people are living under the line of poverty. The economic pressure on Iran has led to the collapse of its currency.

“Abovementioned are some of the stories about the sufferings of people in many countries. The whole world is gripped by repressive regimes, financial crises, unemployment and protests by people against the injustice of their rulers. What about the bad situation in the Arab world in general?!

“Turning to Kuwait, yes, the government has erred in many things including naturalization, absence of a clear developmental plan, deterioration of our educational and health levels, rampant corruption, use of wasta (influence), and so on. However, the demands of some MPs to pardon those involved in the storming of the National Assembly building is a very serious proposal.

“If such a pardon sees the light of the day and if the criminals are released, there would be an immediate drop of the citizens’ trust in the laws, if they have not already collapsed. No one – neither citizens nor expatriates – will respect the laws of the country. Justice should never ever be disrupted. If it does, there will not be any governance to talk about, but only complete chaos. Who will rescue Kuwait from these?”