KUWAIT CITY, April 27: MPs Mehalhal Al-Mudaf and Muhannad Al-Sayer have submitted a proposal to relocate the expatriate bachelors living in Khaitan and then transform the place into a residential area exclusively for citizens. According to the proposal, contracting companies will be prevented from renting buildings in Khaitan for the accommodation of their expatriate workers. The two MPs suggested the accommodations of expatriate bachelors should be far from all the residential areas in the country.

They stressed the importance of expediting the establishment of the housing city for expatriate workers in coordination with the Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) and other concerned institutions. Meanwhile, MP Fares Al-Otaibi forwarded queries to Minister of Oil and Higher Education Muhammad Al-Fares about the renewal of the employment contracts of 300 expatriate engineers in the oil sector, stressing this is a violation of the State’s replacement policy. He wants to know why the Kuwaiti engineers, who graduated recently, were not appointed even if most of them passed the specialist and English language exams, as well as the interviews.

He pointed out that no Kuwaiti engineer has been appointed since 2018. MP Salah Zeib Al-Mutairi asked Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Muhammad about the number of investment portfolios in and outside the country where Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) has invested. He requested for copies of the remittance documents stating the amount transferred, banks and beneficiaries from 2006 to 2021. He wants to know the profits and losses of each portfolio from 2006 to 2021, in addition to the directors and managers of these portfolios and the investing companies that are subsidiaries of the fund.

Allocated
He also inquired about the budget allocated for developing the diplomatic zone, company which will execute the project, if this company previously signed contracts with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and if the company executed similar projects earlier. He wants to know as well the number of employees exempted from the regulations of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) on filling up supervisory posts.

MP Abdulaziz Al-Saqaabi asked Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Rana Al-Fares about the total cost, length and area of the road network projects implemented from 2006 to 2021, total maintenance cost, estimated cost of developing transportation services, and if the Public Authority for Roads and Transportation (PART) has implemented projects related to the development of transportation services since its inception in 2014 till date.

Al-Saqaabi also forwarded queries to Minister of Education Ali Fahd Al-Mudaf about the number of public and private schools which are ready for the reopening of schools in the upcoming academic year — 2021/2022. He wants to know the capacity of each school considering that the number of students in each classroom must be reduced in line with health regulations such as social distancing, plan of the ministry regarding the reopening of all schools in the country, plan to speed up the vaccination of employees especially the teachers before the next academic year, if the ministry intends to implement the hybrid system — combination of online and traditional classes, and if the ministry will provide the required equipment like computers and Internet service to the students.

By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh Arab Times Staff