After we lost billions that were spent on the “joke” of overseas medical treatment, the thefts of electricity and the salaries of the disabled, the army of the secretariats of representatives in various councils, thefts of food subsidies, the waste of water and electricity, and the list goes on, now it is the turn of spending two billion dinars to cash the accumulated vacations of more than 352,000 government employees.

The Ministry of Finance has finalized the cash of vacations law, according to the law approved by the National Assembly on February 9 and referred to the government for implementation.

The study revealed the cost of implementing the law, given that each employee has a leave balance of approximately 90 days.

Although the text of the law is clear and allows the employee, during his service, to cash the balance of his periodic leave and at the end of his service he is entitled to a cash allowance for the balance of his periodic leave that he did not benefit from, calculated on the basis of his last salary.

This contradicts logic and reason and the interest of the employee and the state as a whole. Especially since the Finance Ministry had previously referred to the National Assembly the state’s general budget, and the appropriations for the implementation of this law did not include it, this requires additional appropriation and a new drain. Based on the previous experiences of many with the government apparatus, they are rightly afraid of misusing this law, especially since the general trend is to take whatever you want.

When I studied banking in Britain, my English supervisor gave me the following advice: “One day you will become a boss in your workplace. You have to take care of the welfare of your employees and the interest of the bank in which you work.”

“It is necessary from time to time to ask one of your senior assistants to go to home and sit in his place, and then you will discover many things that you didn’t know about.”

You also have to force the employee to take a leave at least once every two years as this is better for his psychological and physical health, and his relationship with his family and colleagues.

Also, the fact that another employee performs the work of colleagues who went on vacation will enable him to discover any violations he was doing, or bribes he was accepting, or bad work methods he used at work, etc.

The substitution of another for the licensed employee gives the first the opportunity to train for the job, and not to monopolize it in the event of his resignation or sudden death.

Thus, the keenness of an employee to continue to work and not to take the annual leave is an indication of the disorder of his relationship outside his work, or the presence of what he fears will be exposed if he leaves his work for others to do, or because his boss allows him to be absent, even for long periods, as long as he attends daily for minutes to prove his presence by fingerprint or signature.

A friend says that supervisors in several government agencies never ask for annual vacations, and they know that accumulating more than 180 vacations will be lost on them but they are satisfied with that because staying in their workplaces is more beneficial, financially, and the nature of what they are doing allows them to be absent all day.

They going on vacation will spill the beans, their idleness and the wrong situations they used to hide in exchange for illicit money and the Mubarakiya fire is perhaps the best example. Accordingly, we find that the system of cashing state employees’ leave is a crime against work and employee health and welfare.

In this regard, a specialist says that there are examples of wastage of vacation funds at Kuwait University, especially in the optional summer semester.

When a professor teaches in the summer, he gets a double salary. Administrators are also entitled to double salaries, if they work during the summer vacation.

What is even worse is that when a faculty member is given a senior position at the university and remains there for four years, he has the right after that to obtain a sabbatical leave for two years, twice the salary, and this waste exists in many other places.

He added that the system of granting two salaries to a university professor for the purpose of a full-time academic career did not usually result in any scientific production.

Also, whoever occupies a senior position, even if he is not a faculty member, is entitled to receive an administrative sabbatical for two years, with a double salary.

Global funds’ investments in global stock markets declined after the big drop that hit the New York market and other markets.

Would the retirees return the 3,000 dinars for the Public Institution for Social Security after loss in shares, assuming that it paid them out of profits?

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By Ahmad alsarraf