Lawmaker Calls For Kuwaitising Judiciary

A Kuwaiti lawmaker has demanded foreigners in the country’s judicial authority be replaced with nationals, the latest in growing calls for limiting the numbers of expats in Kuwait. “Replacement should start at the top of the pyramid. Kuwaitising the judicial authority is a must,” MP Khaled Al Uteibi said, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai.

He linked the judiciary’s independence to fully Kuwaitise the institution. “If the government wants to cooperate with the assembly [parliament] on the file of replacements, it has to start with the top of the pyramid and be committed to not employing non-Kuwaitis in the judicial authority,” he added. The numbers of non-Kuwaitis in the country’s judicial community is not clear.

Several Kuwaiti public figures, including lawmakers, have recently pushed for redrawing the demographic imbalance, accusing expatriates of straining the country’s health facilities and compounding the COVID-19 threat. Only recently, the Minister of State for Municipal Affairs Walid Al Jasim, made the decision to suspend appointing expatriates and replace those present in the municipality stirred the stagnant water on the issue of Kuwaitisation.

A daily reported of a government plan to reduce these jobs as a first step, to be followed by serious other steps mainly laws envisaged to put an end to the “unreasonable increase” in the proportion of expats, who exceeded 70 per cent of the Kuwati population.

The replacement of foreign workers in the government sector will be applied within three months after coronavirus dissipates, as expatriates will be screened in the government sector, and whoever is hired by the outsourcing system in non-technical jobs will be laid off, and those who work with contracts will not have their contracts renewed, regardless of their positions, especially advisers in government agencies. Government sectors will develop educational and training programs to qualify Kuwaiti youth to fill up specialised jobs.

The sources said new laws, to be introduced soon, will put an end to the excessive increase in a number of communities, and that the quota system will be implemented, so that the largest community will not exceed 20 per cent of the number of expatriates, and members of one community will not dominate any proportion.

The technical jobs in the ministries of education and health will be filled up by talents from different countries, and not focusing on specific countries, and the Education Ministry will hire teachers from Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia and Mauritania, while the Ministry of Health will recruit doctors from India and Pakistan.

The head of the Human Resources Development Committee at the National Assembly, Khalil Al Saleh, said his committee repeatedly warned against the increase in the number of expatriates and called for replacing expats with Kuwaitis in government jobs, and the approval of the quota system.“Marginal employment is blamed for the lack of growth and the depletion of the country’s resources, and the government has become obligated to take strict measures to address this file, by drying its sources of illicit business of visas, and applying the quota system.

MP Safa Al Hashem said she supports the application of the quota system on condition that the number of a people of one community does not exceed 100,000, calling for suspending hiring of expatriates into sensitive positions and their control of the government decision.“It is unacceptable that Kuwaitis account for less than 30 per cent of the population,” she said.Foreign workers make up 3.3 million of Kuwait’s 4.6 million population.

 

SOURCE : THETIMES

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