Call to develop other shopping mechanisms and close co-ops
‘Need to protect consumers, employees and volunteers’
His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah receiving the chairman of Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a number of members of the board of directors. pandemic and Kuwait’s announcement of infected cases at the end of last February, and the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers to close Kuwait International Airport and stop commercial flights, it reflected negatively on the companies operating at the Kuwait International Airport and all business closed.
He said the outbreak of the virus also affected the company’s heavy dependence on supplying meals to flights, mainly to Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways and some of the airlines operating at the airport. KUWAIT CITY, April 30: Major cooperative societies have sounded the health alarm, warning of the repercussions of complacency or the experience of patchy solutions that may lead to central markets being fertile grounds and easy prey for the coronavirus – the hidden opponent that continues to spread in front of total inability to tame or curb it, calling for the markets to be closed in the country while developing other shopping mechanisms more cautious than the current mechanism, reports Al-Anba daily.
The cooperative societies called on relevant State ministries represented by the ministries of Health, Commerce and Industry, Social Affairs and Interior to avoid a catastrophe that could be out of control after the cooperative shopping outlets have been overwhelmed. They demanded the need to protect citizens and expatriates among consumers, employees and volunteers from contracting the disease, saying the disease will spread if the cooperative markets continue to open to all.
Head of Mishref Cooperative Society Abdul Rahman Al-Qadiri was the first to call concerned authorities to completely close the central markets. He called for activation of electronic shopping service and delivery to the door of houses or opening of the service “call and receive your things” without the need to enter the central market or implementing the appointment reservation service through the Ministry of Commerce around the clock instead of limiting it to the ban period.
Absence
He warned on turning a blind eye to the possibility of seeing high infection rate among shoppers at the supermarkets and employees, because the absence of heat symptoms does not necessarily mean we’re safe from infection, as the virus is a hidden antagonist and the societies have become the first hotbed for spreading infection and catching it, because it is the only place for human gatherings.
Al-Qadiri stressed that mixing and friction between human elements in the cooperative markets is inevitable in light of the current procedures that allow general shoppers to enter the societies before the ban period, which means that more than 100 people will be under one roof consisting of employees, volunteers and shoppers.
Saleh Al-Thiab
Top: Trucks dumping the garbage and (above left) garbage dumped and (right) a tin room built in the desert.
A number of citizens have called on the Ministry of Public Works and Municipality and the Environment Public Authority (EPA) to intensify patrolling by environmental police especially at the current time because it is quite visible to the naked eye that visitors to the camps and truck drivers dump waste without regard to the harm caused to the environment, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
The citizens said dumping of waste in Sulaibiya in such a manner indicates negligence on the part of some in addition to weak oversight of inspectors of the EPA which means an effective solution has to be found to prevent indiscriminate dumping of waste by redoubling efforts, toughening penalties, not tolerating violators and ensuring compliance with environmental laws.