ShareBy A Saleh
KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced yesterday deferring Sunday and Monday midterm exams to Tuesday and Wednesday, following His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah's orders to declare a three-day mourning period in Kuwait, flying flags at half-mast and giving three days off to various government bodies over the sad demise of Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
MOE's acting assistant undersecretary for private education Mansour Al-Mansour said the three-day mourning includes all schools - both local and foreign. Meanwhile, official sources at the Civil Service Commission (CSC) said the mourning period is for three days - from Saturday to Monday - and that all government bodies, including schools, will be off during these days.
In the meantime, Kuwait Cancer Control Center (KCCC) Director Dr Ali Al-Mosawi announced that the center will continue providing chemotherapy for patients who had appointments on Sunday and Monday, adding that the process had been coordinated with labs, nursing staff and the registry department. Meanwhile, Kuwait University announced postponing a major registration period to start on Tuesday and end on Monday, Jan 20.
Exceptional budget
In collaboration with the finance ministry, the Cabinet's economic committee is due this week to discuss giving the Ministry of Health (MoH) an exceptional budget to settle the unpaid costs of treating citizens abroad. In this regard, official sources said that this extra funding will be taken from the state's general reserves to pay KD 236.2 million to the Kuwait health office in Washington, KD 78.9 million to the Kuwait health office in London, KD 16.5 to the Kuwait health office in Paris, KD 9.9 million to the Kuwait health office in Bangkok, KD 7 million to the Dubai office and KD 2 million to offices in other cities around the world.
The sources added that the aforementioned sums are for previous and current claims, some of which had resulted in legal disputes between the concerned offices and the hospitals in those countries, which rejected receiving any more Kuwaiti patients until the previous bills were paid.
In addition, the sources explained that the parliament's budgets and final statement committee will investigate the bills and how patients are dispatched for treatment abroad, as some lawmakers suspect there is some sort of manipulation in these health offices that needs to be referred to the public prosecution, like the case of the health office in Germany were manipulation and embezzlement were discovered.
"Some lawmakers might grill Health Minister Sheikh Dr Basel Al-Sabah unless he clearly opens the issue and explains the details about the actual expenses, especially since he had laid off officials from those offices without referring them to court," the sources further stated.
Real estate biddings
Annual real estate biddings made a remarkable rise in 2019 to reach 7,079 properties with a total value of KD 3.6 billion compared to 6,361 with a total value of KD 3.7 billion in 2018. Statistics also showed that real estate properties increased by 718 in 2019 (11.3 percent) compared to 2018, while the total value dropped by KD 73.5 million (2 percent).
Further, statistics showed that residential properties came first with 4,728 in 2019, with a total value of KD 1.5 billion compared to 4,318 with a total value of KD 1.3 billion in 2018. Investment properties came second with 1,770 and a total value of KD 1.2 billion compared with 1,791 with a total value of KD 1.6 billion in 2018. Commercial properties came third with 472 and a total value of KD 618.9 million compared to 132 in 2018 with a total value of KD 584.4 million.
Occupational properties came fourth with 69 with a total value of KD 91.1 million compared to 98 in 2018 with a total value of KD 94.9 million. Coastal properties came fifth with 23 and a total value of KD 135.5 million compared to none in 2018. Storage properties came sixth with nine and a total value of KD 12.8 million compared to 12 with a total value of KD 31 million. Exhibition properties came seventh with eight and a total value of KD 40.7 million compared to none in 2018.
