By A Saleh

KUWAIT: The budgets and final statement committee at the National Assembly urged the finance ministry to be a role model for other state departments in terms of controlling the state's financial administration, regulating its accounts and implementing various directives and financial resolutions. In this regard, committee chairman MP Adnan Abdulsamad said the committee met finance ministry representatives to discuss its final statement for the fiscal year 2018-2019 as well as the State Audit Bureau report and remarks. He added that all remarks were repeated and that practical solutions were needed to put an end to related problems.

Abdulsamad also pointed out an agreement between the central bank and the finance ministry that the state treasury would be responsible for the cost of the central bank's monetary policies, which was KD 110.8 million in the fiscal year 2018-2019 with a KD 81 million deficit compared to predictions. Abdulsamad explained that the committee was keen on collecting the government's dues, which have been accumulating for over 15 years.

Further, Abdulsamad said the committee noticed that the fees collected for using state-owned open land plots were as low as KD 3 million last year, of which only 36 percent had been collected in 2018-2019. He also noted that the finance ministry had been contracting more consultants "for a fortune," adding that nationals should be trained and qualified in a bid to limit such contracts.

National labor
The Public Authority for Manpower is scheduled to start implementing new regulations concerning the national labor percentage in non-government bodies next week after the implementation had been repeatedly postponed for study. In this regard, informed sources said the Cabinet's economic committee had postponed the implementation until a final decision was reached. The sources added that some activities, such as farming, had been exempted from the fines and special fees for not respecting the new percentages.

Notably, the Cabinet had issued a decision amending its resolution number 904/2002 pertaining setting a mandatory percentage for citizens in non-governmental bodies, but it was not so far put into practice. According to the amendments, percentages of citizens will be increased to 70 percent in the banking sector, 65 percent in telecom companies, 40 percent in finance and investment and 30 percent in higher education, universities, institutes and petrochemical industries.

Social care
Minister of Social Affairs Ghadeer Aseeri yesterday toured the juveniles social care hostels for boys and girls to inspect the services provided and the presence of employees during the holidays. Aseeri stressed that the juvenile department is a government body aiming to reform young residents according to international treaties rather than punishing them.

PAAET vacancies
Education Minister Saud Al-Harbi announced he had met Public Authority for Applied Education and Training Director Ali Al-Mudaf and agreed on declaring all vacancies in various colleges within a few days and those in various institutes later, according to standard conditions and regulations. Harbi added that selecting teaching staff members for the vacancies will be done according to set regulations that objectively provide and respect justice and equal opportunities to all candidates.