Parliamentary-ministerial Meeting To Be Held On Wednesday To Discuss Amendments To The Demographic Law

The Parliamentary Human Resources Development Committee will hold a meeting on Wednesday, with the attendance of a number of ministers, to discuss the amendments made to the demographic law, which was approved in the first debate, and to assuage fears of economic pitfalls that might befall the government on account of changes to the law, Al Rai daily reported.

The meeting is scheduled to be attended by ministers of social, internal and external affairs, health, oil, electricity and water, the minister of public works and the minister of state for housing affairs, in addition to representatives of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources.

The daily reports statements from the head of the committee, Khalil Al-Saleh, said: “We are working to prepare the report so that it can be presented in the next session and voted on in the second debate. The government had expressed its objection – when discussing the first deliberation – on some articles in the law, including bestowing the responsibility on a minister, specifying 6 months to announce a government plan in response to the demographic imbalance, and some features of halting the transfer of visit visas to work visas, and suspending the visit visas to family visas.

The daily said, quoting parliamentary sources that the government’s position on the demographics law came as a surprise, especially “after the government had expressed its agreement to the law in the committee’s meetings, which was characterized by flexibility and objectivity, and it left the government to determine the quotas of the expat communities based on market needs. Yet it returned in the last session and objected to some articles of the law, and preferred not to vote on it in two deliberations, and it was sent back to the committee to make some amendments.”

The sources told Al-Rai daily that “The government prefers the issue should not be the responsibility of a specific minister, especially since the issue is complex and its responsibility cannot be limited to a specific minister or one ministry because the demographic issue is under the jurisdiction of several ministries, the most important of which are affairs, the interior and foreign affairs.”

The sources pointed out that “the government, which showed flexibility in the meetings of the Resource Development Committee, and stressed in the last session the need not to restrict the government to time frames such as allotting 6 months to announce a government plan to address the demographic issue or end the entire problem within 5 years, because the government considers the issue as complex and multifaceted, and effects many important sectors, and it is not easy to dispense with all expats within a short period, and any imbalance may affect the needs of the labor market, which might cause economic pitfalls.”

 

SOURCE :TIMES KUWAIT

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