‘Citizens, expats rewards same’

KUWAIT CITY, April 12: According to reliable sources, the mechanism for awarding COVID-19 front-line bonuses to workers from the government sector who were assigned to work on confronting the spread of the virus is the same for both citizens and expatriates, reports Al-Anba daily.

They explained that the mechanism will be according to three categories, each of which has two groups. For the high-risk segment of the first category, each working day will be multiplied by 2 of the total salary. For the average-risk segment, it will be calculated by multiplying each work day’s wage by 1.5.

In the second category, the calculation for the high-risk segment involves multiplication of each day’s wage by 2 by 50 percent. For the average risk, the bonus will be calculated as the daily wage multiplied by 1.5 by 50 percent.

For the third category, the high-risk reward is calculated by multiplying the oneday wage by 2 by 25 percent, and the average risk is calculated by the employee’s daily wage by 1.5 by 25 percent.

The sources said the main factors that doubled the value of the reward for the front-liners are the high-risk group, those directly dealing with infected patients, working in the field during the total curfew in summer, the number of actual work days, and the infection of some among them in the line of duty.

In response to a question about the benefit for the workers who were infected with COVID-19 in the line of duty, the sources said, “Workers covered by any of the three categories who contracted COVID-19 because of work are given double the total salary or KD 8,000, whichever is more. The deceased Kuwaitis are considered as work martyrs, and their names are referred to the Cabinet”.