KUWAIT: Accountants working at the Ministry of Education (MoE) yesterday demonstrated in protest of the amount of work they are required to do and the lack of financial incentives, according to their statements. Protestors said they have to process and input the data of over 100,000 MoE employees' salaries every month, while the allowances paid to accountants are inadequate compared to the efforts exerted. They also stressed that their claims had been falling on deaf ears and that nobody in MoE cares about them.

MoE's assistant undersecretary for financial affairs Yousef Al-Najjar said that he had been urging the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to increase accountants' wages since he assumed his post. Najjar explained that accountants get a KD 300 allowance for those holding university degrees, while those with lower degrees get a little less. He also stressed that there is no shortage in the numbers of accountant as new recruits are being constantly appointed in the sector.

In another educational concern, MoE recently authorized various schools to adjust the data of bedoon students in grade 12 before approving the final version and handing it to the exam control, as some of them had been facing nationality-related problems. In this regard, educational sources said the adjustments will be done according to the ID cards issued by the central apparatus for illegal residents, which was welcomed by parents who rejected the presence of other nationalities in their children's birth certificates.

Solar power plant
The Cabinet's economic affairs committee will meet Sunday to discuss building, operating and maintaining Al-Debdebah solar power plant. In a letter addressed to the Cabinet's secretariat general, Oil Minister and Minister of Electricity and Water Khaled Al-Fadhel stressed that the project aims at achieving HH the Amir's vision to provide 15 percent of the power Kuwait needs from renewable resources by 2030, and this is why the Cabinet authorized Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) to build a plant to generate electricity using solar power.
Fadhel added that the project, due to be built by KPC's subsidiary Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) over a total area of 32 sq km at Shaqaya renewable energy complex, will provide 1-1.5 gigawatts of energy. Fadhel said the project was offered for public bidding in Sept 2018, adding that the winning contractor will build, operate and maintain the plant for 25 years effective from expected operations in 2022.

By A Saleh