KUWAIT: Following the municipality revenues scandal, the Municipality's financial and administrative department exposed a new one that ended up by terminating the contracts of 24 expat employees who had been used by some municipality officials to run personal errands instead of doing municipality work.

In this regard, high-ranking municipal sources said that on reviewing the files of expat employees hired as 'support service' staff and checking their punch-in and out records at various municipality branches, it appeared that 24 of them had not been showing up to work regularly and that some officials had been covering up their absence in return for personal favors. "Accordingly, the department took legal measurers to terminate and expel them," stressed the sources, adding that Municipality's deputy director for financial and administrative affairs Waleed Al-Jassim would prepare a full report about the case pending investigations and referral to the legal affairs department and holding the concerned officials legally accountable.

"Those employees had been receiving excellent performance bonuses though some of them had never shown up to work since 2010." explained the sources, noting that most of the dismissed expats had been working as drivers, photographers and representatives (mandoubs) and that the concerned employees would be referred to public prosecution if investigations showed they had been regularly paid without doing any actual work for the municipality. The sources stressed that Jassim issued a directive urging all employees to use fingerprint scanners in punching in and out with no exceptions whatsoever. - Al-Rai