Municipality to cut expat staff

KUWAIT: The higher planning committee at Kuwait Municipality held an expanded meeting to discuss and set a strategy to reduce the number of contracts of using services and fixed contracts for expatriate employees, so that their numbers are reduced within one year in coordination with the Civil Service Commission.

An official source at the municipality said “the municipality is dealing with the CSC according to a certain mechanism that includes all ministries, and it will be in certain stages that go along with specialties and priorities”. He said the municipality closed the services help contracts as a primary move, and will not renew fixed contracts when they expire.

The source said the move is on a trial basis, and the alternative will be according to the employment scale given to Kuwaitis and residents. He said the municipality is moving according to budget items and not the “help” principle. The source said there is an idea of reviewing the evaluation of all expat employees who are included in the services help contracts or fixed contracts according to specialties and the need of work for them, in addition to completion rate and percentage of attendance.

Meanwhile, Minister of Municipality Affairs Essa AlKandari approved the recommendations of the joint committee regarding the violations mentioned in the Audit Bureau’s report in regards to hygiene contracts, discounts and cancelations, in addition to canceling some items that saved KD 7 million. The recommendations approved by minister Kandari included fining eight companies with amounts of nearly KD 3,357,451, that included not submitting attendance lists daily to municipality representatives, not imposing and collecting due fines and because companies did not provide a workshop to clean cars and equipment.—Al-Rai, Al-Qabas