‘Confusion, mishandling of major projects to further harm economy’
“I DO not understand why the concerned authorities did not officially announce the cancellation of the notorious ‘Kuwait Musafer (Traveller)’ program in order to reflect the current situation and remove confusion at other airports, some of which still require the traveler to Kuwait to show the evidences and requirements of ‘Kuwait Musafer’ because the cancellation decision has not been clearly explained or nullified,” columnist and former minister of information Sami Abdullatif Al-Nisf wrote for Annahar daily.
“In the country of ‘we are different’ for information only, there is no other country in the world where airport passengers do not exceed 15 million annually having four different and separate buildings for passengers where every building is in need of four shifts of work and the related staff members including the passports employees, security men, and employees top register names of the passengers and the high and unreasonable cost of that, which causes the public budget deficit to grow, while we find that the best airport in the world, which is the Doha International Airport, is a single building that includes all airlines, which reduces the cost significantly and facilitates transit operations and investment in duty-free shops, and the same is true with all Gulf airports, Arab and international, except for those whose air density and the number of passengers reach an extent that no single building can accommodate.
“It may or may not be, we don’t really know in light of the silence of the concerned authorities -- the separate buildings at our airport is what makes Kuwait satisfied with five or ten thousand passengers a day, which harms airlines, especially the ‘Kuwaiti’ and the arrivals and departures, while we do not see such modest numbers of commissioning at the airports at our Gulf sisterly countries, given the fact what is happening in our country in this connection, shall help exhaust both the citizens and the expatriates and eventually destroy the businessmen or what remains thereof.
“At last, this happens at a time when we hear the difficulty of establishing projects in Kuwait, including the railway project, Egypt signed recently a contract with the German international company Siemens linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean through a high speed railway for passengers and goods train that will run on electricity and has a length of 660 km and the cost of the project is $4.4 billion and the implementation period is only two years, with a free maintenance contract for 15 years.
“A contract like this means the world and its major companies believe in the future of Egypt and its projects, and contracts of this cost means that projects in Egypt have become far from the ghoul of corruption that exaggerates and multiplies prices and compromises the rights of countries.
“Finally, we would like to divide $4.4 billion on the length of the railway in question 660 kilometers so as to get the approximate price for each kilometer from the relevant railway, and this entails that we in Kuwait, should not pay more than that.”
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“All of us, the people and the government, know that there is no license that allows domestic workers’’ offices to household workers on hourly basis and we also know that some of these offices are operating illegally, and all those who seek shelter in these ‘fake’ offices are violators of the residence law,” columnist, former MP and the incumbent general manager of Scope Satellite TV Channels Talal Al-Saeed, wrote for Al-Seyassah daily.
“We also know that the maids they send to us to work on hourly basis are all runaway workers and there are reports filed by their sponsors with the respective police stations in their areas, and despite this fact we continue to deal with those offices, and we do not report them, because we are in dire need of those fictitious offices at this particular time, so there is no other way but do with it knowingly we become partly violators of the law.
“The rational government, may God bless it, has narrowed us down, and closed the avenues, so there are no new workers, no domestic servants, and servants’ offices currently wear a deserted look, although these were previously full of new orders and the domestic workforce from those who had sent back to these offices or to the so called “the office sponsorship”.
“But, with regard to the government owned ‘Al-Durra Company’ or the ‘new problem’ we say the government has added it to its many problems particularly since we know that the government is currently having a lot of problems and issues which are still to be solved. In spite of this reality, the government has added the Al-Durra whose task was to importing domestic workers, but it has failed drastically, simply because this is not its business.
“Our rational government is thinking about imposing taxes, raising rents, imposing tax on purchase, and everything that burdens the citizen, but the decisions that benefit the citizen are postponed indefinitely, the most important of which is the problem of domestic servants that has been exacerbated and aggravates on daily basis.
“In this connection, we would like to point out that far away from this kind of intimidation, we have observed that every Kuwaiti house is in need of a driver or housemaid, hence, we wonder, what is the government doing to solve the domestic servant crisis as swiftly as possible.”
“Middle level officials in ministries and institutions are considered human wealth that must be invested in. In most cases, they are the ones who lead development and creativity when they have the opportunity to understand the details of the work closest to their graduation and younger age,” columnist Dr Hind Al-Choumar wrote for Al-Anba daily.
“They have skills and initiatives that may not be available to those who have reached leadership positions in senior administrations and have spent many years in their positions with their old ideas. If the middle level officials have a fair opportunity, their unconventional ideas are launched to solve problems or obstacles at work.
“The middle level officials must have an opinion and a voice in everything that goes on at work, so they are not exposed to frustration in many positions due to the domination of the higher officials over them -- those with funny seals and signatures who could shatter their hopes and destroy their ambitions because of the hateful centralization and outdated ideas.
“The middle level officials are the future of the nation, as they create an atmosphere of justice and equality in their positions due to the difference in their skills, methods and visions such that they are keen on working towards development and creativity, in addition to their self-confidence. They encourage everyone to engage in fruitful giving and creativity.”
“Privatization is a reality that is required if we want to find jobs for those entering the labor market annually -- around 25,000 to 30,000 with various fields of specializations obtained from universities and colleges,” columnist Kamel Abdullah Al-Harami wrote for Al-Rai daily.
“The government will try to gather them in ministries, departments and institutions that are already crowded.
“We have to prepare ourselves, especially in departments and institutions that were originally dedicated and wholly owned by private individuals and companies like Kuwait Airways, Petrochemical Industries Company, Kuwait Oil Tankers Company and Kuwait National Petroleum Company with a share of 40 percent for the private sector.
“The other reality is that most oil countries, especially our neighbors, have different levels of participation in oil facilities, particularly in refineries. About 50 percent of Saudi Arabia’s refineries are in partnership with American, Dutch, English and Chinese oil companies.”