KUWAIT CITY, Aug 25: Seventeen cleaning companies that implement the current public cleaning contracts complained about the delay in disbursing the bills owed to them by the Kuwait Municipality, reports Al-Qabas daily. The companies are said to have submitted a complaint to the Minister of Municipality, Dr Rana Al-Fares, regarding the delay in the continuous payment of monthly bills by the municipality. This problem, which has serious implications and huge losses for us as companies operating in the cleaning contracts sector, is being resolved.

The companies explained that according to the terms of the contract, document 1-4 definitions -- item 13 regarding certificates and payment -- “the general conditions that require the municipality to pay the monthly bill within 30 days from the date of delivery of the bill.” The bills delivered to the municipality have accumulated for several months and are not collected within the period mentioned and stipulated in the above clause in accordance with the concluded contract.

The companies indicated that the financial controller issued several new procedures and requirements as a new work mechanism to approve the payment of bills that were not mentioned in the contract and did not give the cleaning companies a deadline for implementation, which resulted in the accumulation of bills owed by the municipality for several months, some of which amounted to 8 months, which were not paid despite the possible consequences of many effects and disadvantages may result or result from that delay.

We mention, for example, but not limited to, the following:

First: The delay in the payment of salaries for the workers working in these contracts, which results in the Public Authority for Manpower applying violations and fines to us due to non-payment of workers’ salaries and entitlements on time, and this causes a financial burden on our company and huge financial losses that cannot be absorbed later.

Second: The delay in the payment of salaries for the workers who work in these contracts may lead to these workers carrying out mass strikes as a result of non-payment of their salaries and entitlements, which negatively affect the functioning of the public facility as a result, and this matter may not happen once it is avoided.

Third: The cleaning companies bear additional burdens that were not taken into account during pricing as a result of canceling fuel subsidies for public cleaning contracts in light of the low prices of the current contracts and we incurred huge financial losses as a result, which negatively affects our companies and may lead to work impediment due to the lack of sufficient liquidity to cover those losses.

Fourth: The companies incurred several losses as a result of the high market prices of spare parts for machinery and equipment and their maintenance that operate with the current cleaning contracts in order to preserve the performance of the work to the fullest extent and the failure of the Kuwait Municipality to pay those bills owed by them may hinder us from carrying out the necessary maintenance work for those mechanisms and equipment due to the lack of sufficient financial liquidity, which may result in the application of fines and violations on us by the municipality.

The companies confirmed that, in order to ensure the functioning of the facility and the public interest, we present this suffering to consider and decide on the speedy disbursement of our overdue dues owed by your Ministry for the current public hygiene contracts to ensure that we implement the work of these contracts to the fullest and to stop the depletion of our resources, which may negatively affect the course of our future work, and to avoid what we have previously mentioned.

The companies proposed the formation of a joint committee consisting of representatives from the office of the Minister of Municipality, the Kuwait Municipality and the cleaning companies, whose role is to fill any defect that is expected to occur or any other problem, as required by the public interest. The companies confirmed their inability to control the negative aspects of the issue in light of the losses and the lack of liquidity and what might happen in the future as a result of the delay in disbursing the bills owed to us while preserving all our other legal rights towards the municipality