‘Supervisory & top positions in MPW remain vacant for years’
Vacancy file not dealt with by any minister who preceded Dr Rana
KUWAIT CITY, Jan 16: Informed sources in the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) expressed their disappointment about the delay in resolving the problem of vacant leadership and supervisory positions in the ministry, some of which have been passing from one minister to another during the past years, reports Al-Qabas daily.
They explained that they hope the Minister of Public Works, and State Minister for Municipal Affairs Dr Rana Al-Faris will deal with the vacancy file quickly in the coming period, as it was not dealt with by any minister who preceded her since the era of Minister Abdulaziz AlIbrahim, who left the ministry in March 2015 after the end of his second term that began in April 2013.
The tenures of a number of ministers in the last few governments were limited to one year, after which a new minister would assume the office to get acquainted with the ministry, without having enough time to make a tangible change in the ministry. This was repeated with former ministers Hussam Al-Roumi, Ali Al-Omair, Abdulrahman Al-Mutawa and Jenan Boushahri.
The number of vacant supervisory jobs in the ministry and the Public Authority for Roads and Transportation exceeds 70, some of which have been vacant for years, despite successive monitoring reports that have demanded the necessity of filling these vacancies.
Vacant
Some of the leadership positions have also been vacant for several months, the most prominent of which is the position of Assistant Undersecretary for the Major Projects Sector, which was vacated when former undersecretary Hussam Al-Tahous retired, and also the deputy of the Government Center for Testing and Quality Control.
One of the most important sectors in the ministry is the construction sector and it has several vacant positions as well as the dozens of projects affiliated to state agencies. There is another set of vacancies in the level of leadership positions, in the consultation body sector, which is commissioned by the Assistant Undersecretary for the Financial and Administrative Affairs Sector Eng Abdullah Al-Sabah.
At the level of the PART, the most prominent vacancy is the position of director general of PART, which was held for two years by the Director of Design Department Eng. Soha Ashkanani, in the wake of the dismissal of the former director Eng. Ahmed Al-Hussan in 2018.
The sources demanded the necessity of working to fill the vacancies, especially at the level of directors and heads of departments due to the importance of their role in the rotation of the wheel of work in the ministry, which is considered the top-level state contractor and undertakes projects with an estimated annual spending of about one billion dinars.