‘Govt ill-prepared for reforms’
‘Needs of society remain unfulfilled’
“KUWAIT is a small country with abundant wealth, and the community benefits and enjoys this abundance in terms of education, health, job guarantee, and the absence of any tax on the individual, in addition to the extraordinary subsidies that the state provides to the citizen and the expatriate in fuel and electricity prices,” columnist Hamed Al-Saif wrote for Annahar daily.
“In this context, the real cost of water and electricity is less than forty fils, but is sold to the consumer at two fils only and this reflects the keenness of the state since the very beginning of the oil discovery in the country to get all of the Kuwaiti individuals to benefit from this wealth by all means.
“In this connection, we would like to point out that in spite of all of the above privileges the government extends to the citizens, the government has failed to manage the affairs of the country in a manner, and rather it manages the affairs through a political angle.
“It creates crises for itself without reason and continues to this day in the complexity of society. The old game is still ongoing and we do not even see in the horizon the signs of reform for a deviation economic and legal life, as awareness increased among the people, and all members of the society, speak about corruption and the lack of application of the law, and the state looks at the moment as if it was not responsible for the above and no longer concerned about the change of its current method where the country’s public services, health and educational services still in steady backwardness in spite of the huge sums that had been disbursed for meeting the requirements of the said services.
“Given the above, we infer that the State, has no clear cut plan for dealing with reforms and development, rather the state is still involved in the game of quota system among political groups --tribal, religious, sectarian and commercial, given the fact that this represents a non- stable policy and not loyal to the state.
“As for today, things have changed and the country is using technology in all of its businesses to transfer information and communication between its groups, and information is spread among its members with amazing speed, which has created a vacuum between the state’s movement and the society’s impact on the information, and this has made the state lagging behind in responding to the needs of society.
“We see that the government is involved in committing many mistakes due to the lack of economic and legal references to keep pace with the major changes in society and the accelerating technology.
“So why does this happen and the state has all the material and human capabilities in achieving the aspirations of society, so it has no excuse not to do so and what is the reason?
“As a matter of fact, it looks like the state doesn’t want to achieve the necessary and significant things that might be required for changing its method although the things seem to be obvious and have been successfully applied in many states although the economic circumstances of the latter are harder than that of the State of Kuwait.
“However, speaking of the necessary and significant measures to be followed by the State, are like stopping the subject of quotas and adopting the scientific method in raising the level of government administration and placing the right man in the right place.
“This is in addition to implementing the tax system that is not levied at the present time, but is an important system in the life and transparency of countries in terms of periodic reports from the society on income and exchange to achieve a balance between groups of society in terms of the level of identifying each group in society from rich, medium and poor to help those who are involved in setting up the state plan and eventually dealing transparently with each denomination for the sake of achieving its requirements and defining its duties in light of the reality that might required for achieving the social justice and the opportunities equality.
“Then comes privatization of the services sector in the state and eventually urge both the local private sector and the foreign offices to contribute to the country’s development to ease the state burden either at present or in the future and urge the private sector to play its role in shouldering the development responsibility, provided the state supports this role and facilitates its tasks.
“These are important matters if the state pursues them to achieve many of its goals in an inexpensive manner and avert the embarrassment that may face it while dealing with various political, economic and services issues, let alone the state will be in a position to achieve all objectives of the community in due course and before it is too late and rather than repenting later.”
Also:
“Money laundering or whitening the money is defined as an economic crime that aims to give legal legitimacy to prohibited funds, specially money earned through drug trade, theft, embezzlement, or illegal weapons trade, prostitution and other unethical actions made through various illegal manners,” columnist
Owaied Al-Sulaili wrote for Al-Shahed daily.
“Money laundering does not only affect the economic side, but rather deals with the political side by brainwashing principles and minds, which are two sides of the same coin, by defrauding principles and facts due to parliamentary and political corruption that has reached dangerous and unprecedented stages due to the involvement of the legislative institution which has been elected by the people in such a dirty game represented by managing corruption and directing, transforming and laundering the same through a legitimate and legal manner.
“The country has turned into a financial center for money laundering in the region, thanks to the shackling of the financial authorities, freezing them and deliberately ignoring their decisions, due to the intersection of interests and political and parliamentary pressures that were practiced through commercial and political parties and capable of implementing their agenda without accountability or oversight, due to its control over many state institutions including the executive and legislative.
“The danger that the country faces is two-fold, which is represented by financial corruption, through the spread of the theft and money laundering process, which everyone has practiced through the entry of famous people in the state within that dirty game in addition to legislative corruption by turning that institution into an agenda for the influential political trader to achieve his wishes and protect his interests and tools.
“Speaking of the recent interpellation of both the minister of finance and the minister of education, we suggest that the interpellations fall within the agenda of principles and facts of ‘laundering’ practiced by both ‘the greedy merchant’ and ‘the revengeful politician’ implemented by some of their tools from the deputies of the National Assembly to achieve their interests through political and financial blackmail without achieving any real interest for the people and the nation, which we will see during the coming days, the work of some misguided MPs who are conspiring against the government to bring it down and subject it to the demands this denomination of traffickers.
“In short, we concluded that every interrogation does not achieve reform, it is a paid inquiry, and every crime of theft and money laundering is not referred to the Prosecution and does not end with imprisonment and punishment, as it is an instrument of acquittal from a corrupt and accomplice official.”
“Much has been written about Kuwaiti citizenship gifts endowed far and near and the sincere voices of Kuwaitis refusing to play along with forgery and duplication, demanding preservation of its national identity but the issue was downplayed to the extent of selling the citizenship at the lowest price with the spread corruption in Kuwait,” Professor Nouriah Al-Roumi wrote for Al-Shahed daily.
“Their relatives from Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran took advantage of government’s indolence until it was discovered that names were added to the files of the newly-naturalized people. They arrived through forgery to add a number of relatives to the files of Kuwaitis without their knowledge. We have yet to hear that government withdrew their nationalities as punishment or referred them to the judiciary.
“I do not know the National Assembly’s relationship with naturalization when it is an Amiri right, and the role of the National Assembly is to ratify it only. So, why does the National Assembly Speaker, his deputy and most of the deputies who are naturalized speak about the right to naturalization?
“The deputies who shout at the parliament for naturalization of their relatives know, and before them the government, that their presence is a mistake. They are neither entitled to stand for election nor contradict the constitution, as its article “82” requires a member of the National Assembly to be a Kuwaiti citizen by origin. That is settlers who came to Kuwait before 1920.
“We have already explained this in the article entitled “Nationality by Incorporation and Acquisition” on 06-05-2019 but government is complacent. Otherwise, how would they suddenly jump to the first and foundation from articles five and seven of the nationality law? Is it possible that government does not know about their forgery? Even the fool does not believe this. Rather, government blessed them with it, because she fears them. That is why she naturalized- according to their order, 4000 at a go and fulfilled their dreams to increase their assets. They used to sell it for KD120,000 per person and suddenly jumped to KD200,000.
“Did the statement of an Iraqi minister shake the government when he said 20 deputies of the Kuwaiti National Assembly are holding Iraqi citizenship, and Syrian Foreign Minister said “three of our Syrian children who have Kuwaiti citizenship represent us in the National Assembly”? Do you not remember the words of the former Iranian Ambassador when he was boasting about his nine deputies in the National Assembly? Didn’t such statements move you? Don’t you fear for Kuwait. God, the homeland and history will hold you accountable. May God protect the nation from the manipulators and the corrupt.”