‘Forging docus for 60s iqama punishable’
KUWAIT CITY, July 12: The Council of Ministers has referred the issue of renewing the residencies of non-Kuwaitis who have reached the age of 60 and above and who are not university graduates to the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Dr Abdullah Al-Salman, to take the appropriate mechanism in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Public Authority for Manpower.
The Al-Anba daily has learned from well-informed PAM sources that the authority has submitted three proposals to the Minister of Commerce and Industry to amend the decision not to renew for those who have reached 60 years of age.
The sources pointed out that the first proposal calls for paying a fee of 2000 dinars to renew the residence in addition to mandatory health insurance, while the second proposal stipulated that the fees for renewing the residence would be 1000 dinars for one year in addition to health insurance for this age group.
The sources added that the third proposal includes suspending the decision until further notice with the imposition of health insurance for this category.
The sources stressed that the final decision is awaiting approval by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, as he is the sole decision-maker.
As for granting a person who has reached the age of 60 a temporary residence permit for a period of three months, the sources confirmed that this is due to the Ministry of Interior, which is concerned with granting this residence and not the PAM.
Meanwhile, the Al-Qabas daily said PAM has taken strict measures to prevent tampering of transfer or renewal documents of expatriates who are over 60 years old.
According to the sources,
PAM’s advanced automated systems are capable of detecting any fraud or attempt to pass illegal transactions, noting that an employee was referred to the Legal Affairs Department for investigation after he was found guilty of tampering with the system and transferring or renewing the residence permit of people who are 60 years old and above.
Senior sources said the Director of the Information Systems Center at the PAM Eng. Rabab Al-Osaimi, based on her memorandum submitted to the Deputy Director-General for Administrative Affairs and Human Resources, the employee who approved the renewal transactions
last March was referred for investigation.
The sources added the Information Systems Department, before submitting the memo, made sure that the automated system was working properly, but there was an agreement with the ‘Labor Affairs Sector’ that employees must continue to approve transfer transactions to ensure that the requirements are met and applied correctly for this service.
She added according to the investigations and the audit of the transactions, it was found that the employee’s mistake was unintentional and despite that, he was referred to the legal affairs to take the necessary measures.