Call for panel to vet expat licenses rejected; MP files to grill Sabeeh
KUWAIT: Interior Minister Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah AlSabah yesterday rejected a proposal calling to set up a higher committee to supervise the issuance and renewal of driving licenses of expatriates. In a response to the proposal by MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, the minister said the committee will complicate the procedures for issuing driving licenses to millions of foreigners in the country. He added that issuance of driving licenses to expatriates is governed by a set of ministerial decisions issued to regulate the procedures. A large number of MPs as well as activists and government officials blame expatriates for the menacing traffic problem in the country.
Meanwhile, MP Saleh Ashour yesterday carried out his threat and filed to grill Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and State Minister for Economic Affairs Hind AlSabeeh, who recently survived another grilling. Ashour filed the grilling on the basis of three main issues: Misusing the law to dissolve non-governmental organizations and cooperative societies, failing to enforce necessary policies to restructure the demographics of the state and failing to apply development plans to bolster the country’s economy.
This is the third grilling to be filed by lawmakers within the past two weeks, with the other two against the prime minister and the oil and electricity minister. Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem told reporters the three grillings will be placed on the agenda of the May 1 regular session and debated in the same session. Asked if this could cause tense relations with the government and lead to dissolving the National Assembly, Ghanem said dissolving the Assembly is the sole decision of HH the Amir, but “from protocol meetings with the Amir, I can see no dissolution of the Assembly”.
In his grilling, Ashour said the minister has dissolved 28 NGOs and cooperative societies, some of which have been reinstated by the courts, which means that the minister has misused her powers. He accused her curbing public freedoms in forming NGOs and by dissolving them without a valid legal reason. The grilling also charged that the minister has failed to devise reasonable policies to amend the demographic structure, which is dominated by expatriates.
It charged that the minister has failed to confront visa traders who have tarnished the image of the country abroad, adding that a study by the Assembly showed that as much as 73 percent of expatriate workers are impacted negatively by visa traders. It added that the study shows that a majority of the 1.3 million non-skilled expatriate laborers are victims of visa traders. According to the Public Authority for Civil Information, 39 percent of expat workers have education levels below the primary stage and 35 percent have lower than intermediate education.
The lawmaker said the minister has failed to take any action to resolve this complicated and sensitive issue, and although she claimed that more than 7,200 visa traders were referred to court, only 560 traders were in fact referred. The lawmaker also claimed that the minister has placed obstacles in the path of appointing more Kuwaitis in the private sector, saying that over 28,000 Kuwaitis migrated from the private sector to the public sector last year.