KUWAIT CITY, Oct 2: Acting Director General of the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) Marzouq Al-Otaibi announced that PAM, with the cooperation of the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies and the Ministry of Social Affairs, has started conducting interviews for administrative jobs in the cooperative sector from Sunday. In a statement issued during the PAM’s launch conference on the interviews for administrative jobs in the cooperative sector yesterday morning, Al-Otaibi revealed that the number of vacancies for the first batch in the cooperative societies listed during the period from July 3 to August 13 is 25 vacancies in 11 cooperative societies. He affirmed that this step is aimed at applying Kuwaitization policy in the cooperative societies and continuing efforts to direct national workers to work in the private sector, especially the cooperative sector.

Meanwhile, the Acting Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs Abdulaziz Sari Al-Mutairi affirmed the continued appointment of citizens in cooperative societies for non-supervisory positions in accordance with the conditions specified by the ministry, foremost of which is that “the ratio of salaries to the budget meets the conditions and is approved by the board of directors.”

Conference
In a statement issued on the sidelines of the conference, Al-Mutairi denied stopping the appointment of citizens to jobs in cooperative societies, indicating that appointments are continuing, and applicants will be accepted according to the specified controls. Regarding the test on personal characteristics that applicants for supervisory positions undergo, Al-Mutairi said this test was among the proposals but was not taken into account, as the mechanism was established by PAM so that the interviews are directive, coordination, and personal, without tests. In his speech during the conference, he revealed that the adoption of the joint cooperation mechanism approved by the Council of Ministers as a basic option for implementing the plan to apply Kuwaitization in the cooperative societies required full coordination and continuous cooperation in order to establish the necessary legal and logistical mechanisms to implement this plan.

Al-Mutairi said, “Efforts are ongoing to accelerate the Kuwaitization of supervisory positions in cooperative societies and to complete the remaining stages of implementing the plan in its part related to nonsupervisory positions, in compliance with the decision and directives of the Council of Ministers. This is aimed to achieve the desired goal, which is to create 3,000 job opportunities for Kuwaitis in the cooperative sector as part of the efforts to attract national cadres to work in this vital and important development sector.”

Furthermore, Deputy Director General for National Employment Development in charge of PAM Najat Al-Yousef affirmed that the authority will continue for two weeks to conduct interviews for applicants for supervisory positions in cooperative societies. She announced that the interviews will guide 191 citizens who have been accepted out of 380 applicants to complete their data. This will be the first step in selecting those accepted by the competent committee of the Ministry of Social Affairs for appointment to the vacant supervisory positions in the cooperative societies, with 28 vacancies for general directors, 114 for deputy general directors, and 49 for department heads.

In addition, Head of the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies Abdul Wahab Al-Fares said he considers the step that began today as the first in the project to apply Kuwaitization to the supervisory positions in cooperative societies, and as an achievement for the concerned authorities due to the vitality this sector represents. Al-Fares said, “With the launch of the project,“we have tightened control over cooperative work, especially with the establishment of a clear system for all work procedures, an organizational structure, and the provision of financial incentives.”

By Fares Al-Abdan
Al-Seyassah / Arab Times Staff