Essam Al-Marzouq

KUWAIT: Minister of Oil and Electricity and Water Essam Al-Marzouq said the ministry has collected around KD 1 billion since it started a campaign to collect overdue bills, including KD 33 million collected in May alone. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony held at the Ministry of Electricity and Water to celebrate the advent of Ramadan, Marzouq assured all programmed cuts of water or electricity had been halted during Ramadan and stressed that consumers with overdue bills could check with the ministry to reschedule them.

Work permits

The parliamentary budgets and final statement committee stressed that Minister of Social Affairs And Labor and Minister of Economic Affairs Hind Al-Sabeeh had not kept her promises on issuing the charters and regulations of issuing work permits and assessing the needed labor. The committee added that according to the finance ministry's statistics, expats working in Kuwait (including the government and the private sectors) formed 83 percent of the total workforce, while citizens are only 17 percent.

Council's achievements

Municipal Council Chairman Muhalhel Al-Khaled said that during its legal tenure of three and a half years, the council has accomplished many projects including contributing to solving the housing problem by releasing more land to be used by the housing authority in building over 275,000 housing units so far. Khaled said the council will hold an ordinary meeting today to review a letter from the council's secretary general Yousif Al-Sogobi about the secretariat general's agenda.

By A Saleh