Minister Essa Al-Kandari

KUWAIT: Municipal Council member and head of the Farwaniya committee Nayef Al-Sour recently criticized Minister of State for Municipality Affairs Essa Al-Kandari because of his alleged interference in staff appointments. Sour claimed that Kandari listed some Kuwait Municipality employees alongside those due to receive a special bonus for their outstanding performance at the expense of others who really deserve the bonus. Sour said that the minister was doing this for election-related purposes. Sour also urged His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah to intervene because "Kandari has mobilized the entire municipality to serve his elections interests."

Teachers rewarded

The Ministry of Education (MoE) recently approved the bonuses for its employees working at the general certificate control centers during the second and the fourth period exams for the school year 2015-2016, said assistant undersecretary for development and administrative affairs Fahd Al-Ghaiss. Ghaiss added that MoE urged Civil Service Commission (CSC) to approve paying the bonuses to employees and teachers who had been officially assigned to work in the centers, in addition to teachers marking grades 10 and 11 exams at some Capital governorate schools.

In other news, CSC had earlier agreed to initially allow MOE to appoint 315 expatriate teachers to cover the shortages in some schools in various educational areas. In a letter sent to MoE, CSC explained that it agreed to lift the ban it had imposed on appointing expatriates in ministries and various government establishments to allow MoE to appoint the 1,060 teachers it had already interviewed. CSC also urged MoE to constantly provide it with updated information about the vacancies resulting from resignations to review them and make sure expats would only be appointed in positions suffering from a shortage in Kuwaitis.

Nuclear medicine

Head of the Ministry of Health's (MoH) nuclear medicine department Dr Eman Al-Shemmari said that the total number of patients annually examined in those departments was 50,000. She also denied that patients have to wait long to get an appointment at any of the nuclear medicine departments. Shemmari stressed that nuclear medicine is 100 percent safe and that the material used has a very short lifespan. In addition, Dr Shemmari added that 90 percent of the nuclear medicine department at Adan Hospital is complete.

Violations at Co-ops

Chairman of the prices committee at the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies Sami Al-Munayyekh said that 27 instances of price violations had been detected at Yarmouk and Rawda co-ops. Speaking on the sidelines of a tour he made with union inspectors in both co-ops, Munayyekh warned that co-ops that insist on violating union regulations would be subject to dissolving their boards of directors.

By Meshaal Al-Enezi