KUWAIT: The Minister of Public Works, Dr. Amani Bouqammaz, has drawn a road map to address the deep problems that roads in the country have suffered from for decades, starting with opening the way for international companies to participate in maintenance, and re-evaluating the work of all contractors, reports Al-Qabas daily. During the last ten days the ministry looked into the repair and maintenance works, and the guarantees of the negligent companies have been immediately liquidated in case of any defect in the projects entrusted to them while she emphasized that “the state of the country’s roads and streets has reached the emergency stage.”

Bouqammaz told Al-Qabas daily that the “flying gravel” crisis that exhausted road users and cost them a lot of their money and caused damage to vehicles is not new indicating that the problem began 18 years ago, and worsened over the years, due to bad weather conditions, poor planning, maintenance, and the absence of quality control during and after laying asphalt, stressing that her ministry “has sustainable and immediate solutions to confront the problem, and their implementation will begin.

Dr Bouqammaz described the state of the country’s roads as having “entered the emergency phase,” stressing that she has a “new plan and vision that will ensure, if implemented, that the problems currently afflicting the roads will not recur.”

Bouqammaz told the daily most important features of this plan includes opening the way for international companies to participate in the laying and maintenance of roads in the country, and re-evaluating the work of all contractors who participated in the laying and maintenance work during the last ten years. Dr Bouqammaz attributed the beginning of the emergence of the “gravel flying” crisis in the country to 2005, pointing to official books confirming the emergence of the problem in two regions after the rains that the country witnessed at the time, and that the problem arose again in 2011 and 2013, and since that date, special committees have been formed to follow up the issue.

The sources explained that this narration proves that the phenomenon has been going on for years and it is difficult to determine its causes, but if we want to focus on specific reasons, it is poor planning at the level of road maintenance, poor performance, and lack of quality control during the laying operations themselves. She indicated that the ministry has sustainable and immediate solutions to confront the problem, indicating that the beginning of the move towards implementation was from the government center for examinations, quality control and laboratories, as the basis on which the road development and treatment process will be built, pointing out that the ministry has prepared a database for all the country’s roads, and requested a list of examinations. proactive, in addition to preparing interactive maps in this regard. And she pointed out that the contracts were regional in the past, and it is a procedure that the ministry is forced to implement now due to the emergency conditions in the roads, but the vision that is being implemented in the new contracts is based on relying on performance indicators, and therefore the contractor will be keen to perform well from the beginning, because He will be responsible for what he implements for a period of 5 years, not as a warranty period interspersed with work orders issued by the Ministry to the contractor only.

She stressed that if the ministry discovers mis-implementation or a problem on the road, and the executing contractor does not deal with it before the ministry intervenes, the guarantees and deductions will be immediately liquidated directly from the contractor. She explained that her specialization in “risk management” made her work to anticipate some problems, such as dealing with the rain problem for this year, which is currently being done at the level of roads by working on two parallel lines – developing a sustainable mechanism for road repair, brushing and closing potholes, which are many with Unfortunately, therefore, if the ministry releases 5 or 10 teams a day to fill these potholes, road users will not feel any change. Dr Bouqammaz stated that Kuwait has 7,500 km of roads, of which 750 km are highways, and 6,500 km are internal roads, which means that it is a large network, all of which unfortunately suffer greatly.

Abdullah Al-Duaij, a researcher and civil engineer, said, “The road problem has now gone beyond the emergency stage, and has reached the point of considering it a national security problem, as it poses a threat to people’s security and safety.” Al-Duaij added during the meeting with the Minister of Works that he had previously supervised the laying of some roads, and submitted a mini-report to Minister Bouqammaz. Public Works officials said that the volume of spending on highways alone over the past 8 years amounted to 2.6 billion dinars. Five reasons behind the crisis include poor planning of maintenance work, absence of supervision during the implementation of the mulching operations, failure of the quality control mechanism for mixtures, maintenance of surface layers only and not holding those responsible for the volatility accountable. Five steps to ensure treatment include opening the way for international companies, liquidating the guarantees of defaulting contractors, developing a quality inspection and control center, tightening control over asphalt plants and a comprehensive database of road conditions.

KUWAIT: The Public Prosecution has started investigating the case of a citizen working at the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI), who allegedly received bribes for expediting the issuance of civil identification cards, with some expatriate accomplices, reports Al-Rai daily. The prosecution interrogated all the accused, putting two of them in pretrial detention. It detained the citizen and released the rest of the accused.

KUWAIT : In an indication of the increase in the number of those people banned from traveling due to financial debts and alimony, and amid calls to reconsider articles 297 and 298 of the civil and commercial procedures law No. 38/1980, amended by law No. 36/2002, a statistic released by the General Administration of Implementation in the Ministry of Justice revealed that the number of those banned from traveling during the year 2022 reached 56,782 due to financial cases filed by companies and individuals.
Also, 3,720 citizens were prevented from traveling due to family issues and financial expenses. Regarding the achievements of the implementation departments, the statistics indicated that the number of procedures that were completed during the first half of 2022 amounted to two million, 541 thousand and 481. The procedures of executive seizure “for what the debtor owes others” constituted the largest among the total procedures, recording 41.6 percent of the total procedures. On the other hand, the procedures for opening a file to “adjust expenses” constituted the least by 0.02 percent during the first half of the year 2022.
The total procedures of the various travel ban departments amounted to 50,597 during the first half of the year 2022. Among them, the airport branch accounted for the largest percentage with 29.3 percent of the total procedures of the branches, while the Mubarak Al-Kabeer branch came last in terms of procedures with 2.8 percent.
In a breakdown of the procedures, there were a total of 24,223 travel ban orders with a rate of 40.0 percent, which is the largest percentage of the procedures, followed by the “lifting the travel ban” orders with a rate of 26.4 percent. Regarding rents, the total number of procedures of rental departments amounted to 44,726, with the Capital branch coming in first place with 60.2 percent of the total procedures, and the Mubarak Al-Kabeer branch coming last with 1.3 percent.
The total procedures implemented in the Family Court amounted to 354,698, with the Capital Governorate recording the largest percentage with 25.8 percent of the total, followed by the Hawally and Ahmadi governorates with 18.7 percent and 18.2 percent respectively, then the Farwaniya Governorate by 14.1 percent, and finally the governorates of Mubarak Al-Kabeer and Jahra with 11.8 percent and 11.4 percent respectively. By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff
Source: Arab Times

KUWAIT: A year after the application of the KD 800 fee, in parallel with the implementation of the Kuwaitization policy in government agencies and the crackdown on marginal labor, a recent statistic revealed that 178,919 expatriates left the country in the year 2022.
According to the statistics issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI), the total number of final exits by holders of undergraduate certificates who are of ages 60 years old and above amounted to 17,891 expatriates due to their inability to pay the fees estimated at KD 800. The number of expatriate workers aged 60 years and over reached 104,645 as of mid-2022 from about 122,536 in mid-2021.

There is also a noticeable decrease in university degree holders from 155,665 in mid-2021 to 146,942 in mid-2022. In addition, the number of postgraduates also decreased from 7,213 in mid-2021 to 6,912 in the middle of 2022. The total number of expatriate workers in the middle of the year 2022 amounted to 2 million and 718 thousand and 803 expatriates. Their number in 2021 was about 2 million and 897 thousand and 522 expatriates, which means that about 178,919 expatriates left Kuwait permanently within a year.
According to official data, the percentage of expatriates working in the government sector in Kuwait is the highest among the Gulf countries, with about 23 percent of the total government employees, reports Al- Rai daily. According to the latest statistics of the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI), the number of workers in the public sector amounted to about 483,200 employees, of whom 372,800 are Kuwaitis, constituting about 77 percent of the total, and about 110,400 are expatriates.
The total number of Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis working in the public and private sectors in Kuwait amounted to about 1.91 million. Among them, about 75 percent work in the private sector, and the remaining 25 percent in the public sector. As for other GCC countries, the number of workers in the government sector in Saudi Arabia has reached about 1.7 million, of whom about 90.8 percent are Saudis and only 9.1 percent are expatriates, according to data from the General Authority for Statistics in Saudi Arabia. In Bahrain, the number of public sector employees reached about 39.8 thousand workers, of whom Bahrainis constitute 85 percent and expatriates 14.6 percent, according to the latest data of the Labor Market Regulatory Authority in Bahrain. In the UAE, the number of workers in the public sector reached about one million employees with 89 percent Emiratis and 11 percent expatriates, according to data from the official portal of the UAE government.
In the Sultanate of Oman, the number of government workers reached about 393,000, of whom Omanis constitute about 89 percent, and expatriates only 11 percent, according to the electronic census data in the Sultanate, which is a central statistical data system linking various databases of government and private agencies. No detailed data were available regarding the employment structure of the public sector in the State of Qatar. Based on these data, the percentage of expatriates working in the public sector in Kuwait is the highest in the Gulf (23 percent). Bahrain comes in second with 14.6 percent, followed by the UAE and Oman with 11 percent, and then Saudi Arabia with 9.1 percent.By Najeh Bilal Al-Seyassah Staff
Source: Arab Times

KUWAIT: At least 4,237,454 traffic violations were registered in 2022 evaluated at KD 73.5 million (about USD 239 million), said a statistics Wednesday. The number of seized vehicles in 2022 hit 5,076, while the number of the held motors hit 798, it added.
The new 6G cameras registered 3,393 belt violations, while 2,083 ones relating to using mobile while driving between January 1 until February 27, it added. Up to 2,653,005 violations of exceeding the speed limit were registered in 2022, while 236,294 others of breaking signals, it noted. The Ministry of Interior announced using new cameras inside 200 new traffic patrols, in addition to a number of fixed and mobile ones. The Ministry indicated that the number of current patrols reached 800.

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education plans to terminate the services of 1,875 expatriate teachers working in schools, which the public education sector has identified and their services will be terminated at the end of the current academic year 2022/23, and the end-of-service decisions will be issued, which will be determined according to the academic stage in which the teacher works, reports Al-Jarida daily. In this context, educational sources said the public education sector identified the names of the teachers who are covered by the service termination plan that was recently approved by the Ministry of Education, explaining that lists of names were sent last Wednesday to the administrative sector, in light of which the procedures for terminating their services were initiated, and the ministry will start by handing them end-of-service notices.
he sources said that the process of determining the names was based on the opinion of the educational regions and the technical directions of the academic subjects. In other news, the labor market – both governmental and private – received 14,617 male and female citizens in one year, bringing the total national employment in the two sectors to 438,803 male and female employees as of September 30, 2022, compared to 424,186 the previous year.
Kuwaitis continue in the third place in terms of the labor force in the two sectors after Indians and Egyptians, reports Al-Rai daily. According to the latest statistics of the Central Statistics Bureau, the two labor sectors, excluding the family sector (domestic workers and the like) showed a significant progress in the number of workers from Nepal, which increased from 40,102 to 56,489, an estimated rate of about 40 percent.
Indian workers increased from 451,381 on September 30, 2021 to 476,335 on September 30, 2022, thereby pushing the Egyptian workers to second place, despite the latter’s increase by about 10,000 from 456,646 to 467,074. With a decrease from 161,154 to 158,911, workers from Bangladesh are in fourth place, followed by Pakistanis with a decrease from 70,386 to 68,755, then workers from the Philippines with an increase from 63,279 to 65,260, followed by workers from Syria, Nepal, Jordan and Lebanon. According to the statistics, the number of Syrian workers decreased from 65,925 to 63,680, which means 2,245 Syrian workers left the market. Also, 29 Lebanese workers exited the market, reducing the number of Lebanese workers from 20,300 on September 30, 2021 to 20,271 on September 30, 2022.