KUWAIT CITY, July 24: MP Bader Al-Humaidi has asked Minister of State for Municipal, Communications and Information Technology Affairs Rana Al-Fares about the licensed and unlicensed communication towers installed on top of public and private buildings. He wants to know the number of these towers and if the Communications and Information Technology Regulatory Authority (CITRA) collected fees for installing the towers on top of public buildings since the annual fee increased from KD 40 to KD 150 in 2020. He obtained information about the diseases caused by staying near the communication towers, so he inquired about the measures taken to minimize such hazard; if CITRA filed cases against the communication companies and vice versa; number of such cases if any; report on the expenses of the current and previous boards of directors of CITRA since its establishment till date; profits of the authority; and total amount that the authority has collected for the services it provides.

MP Hamdan Al-Azmi forwarded queries to Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Oil and State Minister afor Cabinet Affairs Muhammad Al-Fares about the organizational structure of Ahmadi Hospital, including the most recent promotions. He inquired about the criteria for the appointment of the general manager of the hospital, his tenure, his experience and number of committees he chairs; number of nationals and expatriates that the hospital served in the last three years; nationalities of employees at the hospital; steps taken to implement the Cabinet’s decision to nationalize jobs in the public sector and replace expatriate employees with citizens; number of patients who underwent overseas treatment in the last five years, their nationalities, criteria for approving overseas treatment applications, number of rejected applications, reasons behind the rejection and nationalities of these applicants; budget allocated for overseas treatment in the last five years; number of complaints filed against the administration of the hospital in the last five years; number of Kuwaiti and expatriate consultants, their nationalities, specializations, experience and salaries; procedures adopted to hire nurses, number of appointed nurses, their nationalities and total recruitment cost; number of offices abroad tasked to follow up overseas treatment cases, countries where these offices are located, and the number and nationalities of employees in these offices.

In another development, MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri said the merger of Kuwait Finance House (KFH) and Ahli United Bank (AUB) is aimed at gaining full control over the economy including the real estate market, covering up public fund embezzlement cases like the Kuwait Army Fund case and that of former Chairman of Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) Fahd Al-Rajaan. He claimed some parties are keen on taking advantage of the absence of the government and parliament to pass this suspicious merger, asserting “we will not allow this to happen”. By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh Arab Times Staff