ShareMunicipality fights construction violations
KUWAIT: The Ministry of Electricity and Water's (MEW) total employees till Dec 2017 were 20,440, including 19,078 citizens, 704 Arab expats, 630 Asians, 24 Africans and four expats of other nationalities, technical supervision and statistics manager Iqbal Al-Tayyar said. Tayyar added that MEW has been keen on replacing expatriate staff working in various sectors with citizens for years. She added that citizens formed 93.3 percent of the ministry's employees in Dec 2017 with 19,078 workers, while expats dropped to only 1,362.
Construction violations
Kuwait Municipality Director Ahmed Al-Manfouhi urged the construction violations committee he recently formed to enforce the law without abuse or leniency. Speaking on the sidelines of his meeting with the committee, Manfouhi said the municipality has succeeded in enforcing municipal laws and it will not step back. He added that the committee has been granted all powers including referring violators for relevant investigations.
Manfouhi said that the committee was asked to set a clear mechanism to administratively and legally deal with violators, as well as document its work. In addition, Manfouhi stressed the need to execute various construction violations' demolition verdicts and put a limit on people taking the law lightly. The committee's chairperson Amshaa Al-Mutairi said that the municipality will coordinate with MoI to execute final demolition verdicts by force and at the violators' own expense. She added that one of the violators was fined KD 25 million.
Egyptian produce
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued a resolution extending the period of precautionary inspection and examination of agricultural products imported from Egypt (lettuce, capsicum, onion and guava) for an extra three months. The decision also included listing all companies importing those items. Notably, the decision is a continuation of the ministry's decision to lift an embargo on Egyptian produce issued in Nov 2017 on the condition of providing health certificates with each shipment, providing a certificate on testing for pesticide residues in agricultural products and holding all shipments until specimens are examined to make sure the products are safe for human consumption. The ministry also issued a ban on importing all poultry - fresh, chilled, frozen or processed - from India and Japan because of bird flu outbreaks in those countries. The decision also included lifting an embargo on importing the same from Zimbabwe and Mexico.
Food inspection
Mubarak Al-Kabeer food and nutrition manager Abdullah Ahmed said the department's inspection teams recently inspected various restaurants and food outlets in Subhan, Qusour and Adan. Ahmed added that the raids resulted in filing three citations for handling food items without having health certificates and violating hygiene conditions, in addition to issuing 48 warning notices.
By A Saleh and Meshaal Al-Enezi
