KUWAIT: Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) statistics showed that the total value of wages paid to KPC and its subsidiaries' employees in the period between April 30 and September 30, 2017 was KD 640 million. The same statistics also showed that there were 2,000 job vacancies in the 2017-2018 budget and the total number of oil sector employees by the end of this fiscal year would be 21,509. Statistics also showed that the total number of operational jobs is 17,524 in addition to 233 capital jobs and 1,066 in the training and development sector. Statistics showed that 85 percent of the manpower were nationals including 9,200 in Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), 6,100 in Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), 500 in the Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), 650 in Kuwait Oil Tankers Company (KOTC), 60 in Kuwait Aviation Fuelling Company (KAFCO), 718 in the head office, 240 in Kuwait Integrated Petrochemical Industries Company (KIPIC) and three in the Oil Sector Services Company (OSSC). Figures also showed that the total number of non-Kuwaitis working in the oil sector is 2,900.

'Kuwaitization'

Kuwait Municipality's deputy director for financial and administrative affairs Waleed Al-Jassem called for assessing all employees as per the Civil Service Commission's (CSC) decision number 11/2017 pertaining with 'Kuwaitizing' government jobs. Jassem requested lists of various expat employees indicating those recommended to keep their jobs and those who could be laid off and stressed that the lists should be handed over within a week and dealt with in confidence.

Scholarships suspended

The Ministry of Higher Education temporarily suspended sending students on scholarship to Malaysian universities as decided by the former minister Dr Mohammed Al-Fares upon a recommendation from the academic accreditation bureau with the aim of reassessing Malaysian educational facilities. The decision excluded students already enrolled in those universities and those who received accreditation from Kuwait's cultural office in Australia to start studying for the second semester of the academic year 2017-2018. Meanwhile, the accreditation bureau has sent delegations to reassess Egyptian and Jordanian universities to make sure they were internationally accredited and ranked.

By A Saleh