MP demands reinstating dismissed bedoon officers
KUWAIT: Chairman of the parliament’s defense and interior committee MP Askar Al-Enezi urged Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah AlSabah to reappoint bedoons (stateless) who he said were dismissed from the interior ministry, describing the decision to terminate people with over 25 years of service as unfair and incomprehensible, especially since the discharged bedoon officers have families to support and are still needed to meet a military personnel shortage.
Meanwhile, MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei said he will propose writing off interest on retirees’ loans because interest is against sharia. He promised to pursue the completion of the second public university as well as establish a third one in Jahra and a fourth in Ahmadi.
Working together
In the meantime, MP Yousef Al-Fadhalah urged all his colleagues to forget about their previous disagreements and start working on achieving people’s aspirations. Fadhalah added that the government has to show more commitment towards cutting spending and stressed that this starts with preventing wastage of public funds. He also promised to open the overseas treatment issue and investigate “the previous touristic medical trips” and corruption within the Ministry of Health, including in construction projects. In addition, Fadhalah urged the new ministers to work on fighting corruption. “We have too much corruption and it ought to be discussed in public sessions and not behind closed doors,” he concluded. Separately, MP Rakan Al-Nisf said that corruption at the Ministry of Health will be excessively discussed in the parliament and called on new Minister Dr Jamal Al-Harbi to fight corruption.
Also yesterday, MP Safa Al-Hashem, rapporteur of the parliament’s financial committee, called for discussing Kuwait Airways’ decision to discharge some Kuwaiti pilots and transfer them to work in other bodies. Hashem urged the government to define the duties of the newlyestablished ministry of state for utilities and whether these services will include electricity and water, for instance.
Wedding halls
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor’s Assistant Undersecretary for Development Hassan Kathem said that since the administrative decision number 1291/2015 went in effect and the ministry started taking over the management of violating wedding halls, 25 had so far been taken over to be run by the ministry’s community development department.
“Ten halls belong to co-ops and 15 belong to individuals,” he explained. Kathem explained there are 69 wedding halls in Kuwait including 18 owned by cooperative societies and 51 donated by individuals. “The ministry will eventually take over all the halls, but will start with the ones violating the decision and which have ignored repeated warnings,” he said, noting that the ministry will not tolerate turning the halls into investment projects only concerned with making profits.