KUWAIT: Candidate Amani Al-Saleh registers for parliamentary elections yesterday. —Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat KUWAIT: Candidate Amani Al-Saleh registers for parliamentary elections yesterday. —Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: Third constituency parliamentary elections candidate Amani Al-Saleh said she is running for parliament because she has a strong wish to straighten the mistakes the government committed against the Kuwaiti people. She added that citizens are struggling and that the government should pay off their debts and impose taxes on merchants. "Women should be equally treated as men in terms of the KD 70,000 loan," she underlined.

Development plan

Secretary General of the Supreme Planning and Development Council Dr Khaled Mahdi stressed the significance and need to activate the development plan's projects according to the council's regulations. Speaking on the second day of meetings held to discuss the 4th annual development plan (2018-2019) in the presence of relevant and concerned authorities, Mahdi stressed that projects should be executed through the public-private-partnership (PPP) model in order to eventually achieve HH the Amir's vision of turning Kuwait into an international financial and commercial hub. Mahdi added that 90 percent of the Kuwaiti workforce works for the government, and hoped that the development plan projects would offer more job opportunities for Kuwaitis.

Budget

Acting Director of the Public Authority for Manpower Abdullah Al-Motoutah said that the authority's budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018 would be KD 69 million, an increase of KD 17 million compared to that of the current fiscal year (2016-2017) at KD 52 million. Motoutah explained that the total payroll expense for the authority's 2,371 employees (including 200 in leading oppositions) would be KD 51 million in 2017-2018, an increase of KD 7.7 million from this year's payroll sum of KD 43,280,000.

Headquarters

The Public Authority for Housing Welfare's senior officials discussed the idea of moving to a larger headquarters in Subhan, especially in view of the growing number of citizens visiting the authority for housing-related transactions. Informed sources said that a full study about this would be discussed with Minister of State for Housing Affairs Yasser Abul soon.

By Meshaal Al-Enezi and A Saleh