KUWAIT: Recent statistics released by the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program (MGRP) show that 81.1 percent of citizens registered for recruitment had filed to get private sector jobs. Statistics also showed that the total number of citizens registered for employment since the beginning of January is 1,010, including 820 applying for private sector jobs and 190 for public sector ones. MGRP is a state department primarily concerned with helping national manpower find jobs in the private sector.

SME fund

The parliamentary budgets and final statements committee met to discuss the budget of the national fund for small and medium enterprises development (SME fund) for the new fiscal year 2017-2018 and its final statement for the fiscal year 2015-2016, in addition to the related remarks of the State Audit Bureau (SAB). Committee Chairman Adnan Abdulsamad said the meeting was held in the presence of Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Khaled Al-Roudhan. Abdulsamad added that SAB was about to withdraw its inspection teams for the second time because the SME fund did not show any cooperation. He also urged the minister to take serious measures to avoid the violations detected by SAB, especially since the SME fund's capital was KD two billion, which could be jeopardized unless regular bookkeeping is followed.

Road projects

The Ministry of Public Works' (MPW) Assistant Undersecretary for Roads Engineering Affairs Ahmad Al-Hassan said a total of KD 311,674,482 of the 2016-2017 budget allocated for the road sector projects (KD 373, 720,000) has been spent so far. Hassan explained that KD 70,274,949 was spent on various road projects during the first three months of the fiscal year - April, May and June. He added that KD 45,829,659 out of the total of KD 106,936,968 was spent during the final quarter of the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

Expat teachers

The Ministry of Education's (MoE) administrative sector starts receiving applications to update the information of married expatriate female teachers this week to make sure none of them receive rent allowance while their husbands already receive it from another government body. MoE stressed that all concerned teachers would have to check with the ministry by the beginning of April so that the rent allowances could be resumed for them. Notably, the KD 60 rent allowance was suspended for expat female teachers in February and March pending updating their information.

By A Saleh