Upon securing my position on the bank’s board of directors and the finalization of board assignments, I put forth the following proposal to my fellow board members. Drawing from my own experiences during the time I served as an employee within the same bank for numerous years, I addressed a matter that had caused me personal distress. This issue pertained to the board members’ reluctance to engage with the banking hall and interact with senior bank staff.
Their purpose in doing so was to exert influence, whether in the context of requesting or extending banking services to themselves or their associates. Additionally, they would intervene in matters such as securing employment opportunities for individuals they recommended to be hired by the bank. I underscored the significant unease this practice generated for me during my tenure overseeing banking services. I recounted instances where a fellow board member would approach me within my office, urging me not to endorse the provision of facilities to a particular company or individual. Yet, in a matter of minutes, I’d receive opposing instructions or requests, either via a phone call or in-person visit.
In these subsequent communications, a different board member would insist that I advocate for the same company or individual to receive the very facilities the previous board member had discouraged. This scenario revealed a perplexing and inconsistent dynamic that posed challenges not only in executing my responsibilities but also in maintaining the integrity of the bank’s decision-making processes. I thus proposed a reconsideration of such interactions between board members and bank employees, suggesting that a transparent and standardized communication protocol be established to ensure consistent decision-making and equitable treatment for all clients and employees.
Representative Hamad Al-Matar says that the “groaning” of retirees is appreciated by him, and that the time has come to stabilize the conditions and laws of the insurance institution, and that it has a portfolio of forty billion dinars, and it has been 15 months without contributing to a single investment project, and the reason (and this is the bottom line and the goal of the representative) absence of leaders, who can invest that money. He said that the management of the institution does not accept the employment of non-blue-blooded people! He described his speech as a cry from the heart, and demanded the need to follow justice in employment, and stop hiring according to the DNA, and that the children of simple people do not find jobs in the Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) or in the Kuwait Investment Authority.
This is empty talk, and it is not based on the truth. I know dozens of people with blue, purple, black and even yellow blood, who work in the highest positions in these two organizations, and they were hired, mostly, for their competence! We call on the government, which says it is reformist, to stop the visits of members of the National Assembly to the offices of senior state employees, so as not to subject them to embarrassing pressures, and to harm the reputation of those who are honorable, if their request is rejected!
When the deputy goes to the insurance company to get a specific job for his son, the engineer, this is often what happens. And another deputy goes to get the same job for his daughter, so who will be given the position? Will the one whose voice is louder than the other and whose threat is more impertinent, get it? Representative Al-Matar says that he bears “concern” about the education file, and asks the members to help him to develop education. And we ask him, out of mercy for education, to abandon since he is “concerned about the file” and give it to someone more capable than him, and less dependent on a well-known religious political party !
❑ ❑ ❑
e-mail: [email protected]
By Ahmad alsarraf
