‘Not all projects are construction’
KUWAIT CITY, Nov 1: The Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development Dr. Khaled Mahdi affirmed that most of the new projects in the country as well as those included in the development plan are developmental projects, and not construction projects as claimed, reports Al-Qabas daily.
During a workshop organized by the secretariat on
Sunday to discuss the follow-up reports, Dr. Mahdi indicated that the quarterly development plan’s followup reports contain transparency resulting from the reports submitted by government agencies and institutions for their projects listed in the annual plan.
He highlighted wrong readings and analysis related to the development plan’s follow-up reports issued by the automated system in the secretariat.
Dr. Mahdi explained that the secretariat has not stopped issuing the follow-up report of the development plan since the issuance of Law No. 7/2016 on development planning. All that the secretariat provides does not deviate from the articles of this law, which obliges the authorities to submit their reports to the secretariat. The secretariat in turn refers them to the Council of Ministers before submitting them to the parliament.
The method of calculating the completion percentages for the development plan’s projects reflects the overall achievement rates, not the interim ones, which were built on the basis of giving relative weights to each stage of the project. They differ according to the type of project in terms of whether it is developmental or structural.
Among the recommendations of the secretariat is the need for the authorities to speed up the completion of the draft laws in the plan. A total of 11 bills that were submitted have been with the concerned authorities for a long time, which requires a new impetus to complete the legislative program of the development plan.
The recommendations also stressed the need for the Council of Ministers, with the cooperation of the National Assembly, to expedite the discussion and approval of the draft laws listed on the council’s agenda, or under study by the council’s 22 qualitative committees, due to the fact that the achievement of many development programs and projects is linked to them, and the need to put an end to the faltering spending in some projects of the annual 2022/2023 development plan as a result of delays in budgets or approval of disbursement.