GIVEN that you can tell a book by its title, a gesture should therefore be enough for a wise man to understand.

However, it seems that the majority of parliamentarians have failed to comprehend the insistence of the Council of Ministers on implementing the fingerprint system on teachers, especially since its implementation revealed corruption in one of the most important state systems, which is education, and the waste of time and money in this sector.

The insistence on implementing the fingerprint system also revealed that hundreds of teachers usually fail to report to work, dozens of them are outside Kuwait, and they rely on “nepotism”, all of which has been harming the education sector.

From there, their practices extend to the rest of the sectors, appearing in the ugliest form, which is low employee productivity. This is the result of relying on the MPs’ protection of them, as well as those who are influential in bending decisions to their interests, and not for the interest of the country. These are the ones with people everywhere and make the country look like “cantons” governed by 51 rulers, and not by one head of state.

The National Assembly failed in the test of detecting the signal, due to which the solution was an urgent remedy. It was a decision based on a vision that must be handled with a lot of understanding about the fact that institutions are governed by laws stemming from the Constitution, which must be applied in letter and spirit, and in a manner that is commensurate with the country’s development and progress, without just going around a vicious circle.

Decisions were taken by the current government that corrected the mistakes of the past stage, based on an approach that must be implemented so that we can see its results later, and the National Assembly had to keep up with it.

However, it seems that the fever of temporary and personal gains for the parliamentarians has overshadowed everything else. It also seems that the continuation of the parliamentary overstepping of the authorities of ministers, the “parachute” appointments, and the neglect of the rights of employees are more important to them than the devastation they have caused in state institutions.

In this regard, His Highness was clear in his lofty statement during the oath-taking session when he said, “The appointments and transfers that took place in some jobs and positions were not consistent with the most basic standards of justice and fairness. Therefore, we stopped the absurdity of appointments by a sovereign decision.”

In recent years, many cases of corruption have appeared in institutions, not only in encroaching on public funds, but also appointing someone who is not qualified to a leadership position. This means thwarting the role of the institution, and thus paving the way for more destruction, which appears to be systematic, because the custom for 30 years has been “finders-keepers”. Unfortunately, there were many corrupt people.

We have witnessed the outcome of these appointments in recent years, starting with employment, passing through subsidies and poor services, all the way to the strategic backbone of the state, which is investments, and the corruption that has emerged therein, in addition to a lot of other forms of mismanagement.

All of this was covered up either by an influential person, or by an MP, or by a deal concluded overnight between a minister and a group of profiteers.

Therefore, the country today lacks a lot, and the current Council of Ministers has many duties and entitlements that must be dealt with, especially with regard to correcting the relationship between the Cabinet and the subsequently elected National Assembly, and for the country to have one ruler and not 51, as was the case in the past.

That is why we are facing a new path while the legacy is heavy. We must work with vision and deliberation so that there are no instabilities or missteps in the decisions that hinder the paths in order for Kuwait to regain its leadership, or at least, to be at the level of the Gulf countries, and to benefit from the experiences of its people and their wealth, the fruits of which can only be reaped in political, economic and social stability.

The National Assembly had to read carefully the title of the book, just as the Council of Ministers today had to keep in mind its ability to actually translate the broad lines that His Highness the Amir laid down in his sublime speech so as to avoid going back to the old habits.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times