KUWAIT: The Public Authority for Manpower's deputy director for expatriate labor affairs Hassan Al-Khodhor said the department's program for assessing expat labor needed for government projects was recently approved, saying that it will help put a permanent end to inaccurate or fake assessments. The program aims at developing actual assessments to recruit only the needed numbers of laborers per project and avoid marginal labor that leads to demographic imbalances, Khodhor added in a statement reported by Al-Jarida yesterday. He added that two special training programs were held by lecturer Dr Huda Boqomaz in collaboration with the authority's planning sector and Kuwait University for heads of departments.

Inaccurate assessment of labor needs has in the past been blamed for contributing to visa trafficking by allowing companies to use the extra slots generated for unneeded workers to issue visas that are then 'sold' to laborers looking to work in Kuwait. Every private company in Kuwait has a file in the Public Authority for Manpower's database which stipulates the number of employees a company can hire. Based on that number, a corresponding number of work visas is issued to serve the company's labor recruitment needs.

Lack of evidence

The criminal court yesterday rejected a female Kuwaiti doctor's demands to reclaim KD 100,000 she had given to a citizen with whom she had an affair, after he refused to return the money. The court justified its sentence over lack of evidence that fraud had been involved or that the defendant had promised to purchase a property for the doctor.

Midterms rescheduled

The Ministry of Education (MoE) yesterday announced rescheduling the midterm exams of all stages following a meeting that Minister Hamed Al-Azmi held with MoE undersecretaries, educational zone directors and various subjects' supervisors. According to the new schedule, primary and intermediate exams will be held in the period of Dec 16-24, grade 10 and 11 exams will be held in the period of Dec 16-27, while grade 12 exams will be held in the period of Dec 30, 2018-Jan 10, 2019, said informed sources, noting that the separation was made to reduce pressure on teachers.

Replacement policy

The Civil Service Commission was able to implement the replacement policy in the public sector as part of the five-year plan that it laid down for 2017-2022, an official source at CSC said. The commission prepared the plan as an implementation of a Civil Service Council decision which demanded replacement according to percentage lists of various jobs, Al-Anbaa daily reported yesterday, quoting the source. He said the commission set the plan and it was evaluated after one year of its implementation, with the percentage of engineering jobs to reach 97 percent by 2020, education 70 percent, social, education and sports 97 percent, information technology 100 percent, science 95 percent, animal wealth and agriculture 75 percent, navy 100 percent, literature, information and public relations 100 percent, finance and commerce 95 percent, law, politics and Islamic studies 88 percent, development, statistics and administration 100 percent, criminal, prevention and rescue 98 percent, administrative support 100 percent and services 85 percent.

Interpol's database

The criminal detectives department linked the Interpol's database with all border departments after being limited to the airport only, in order to derive maximum benefit from the organization's data, which will prevent any wanted person from entering the country in the future, informed sources said. The department is exchanging details of suspects wanted in member countries in order to arrest and hand them over in coordination with concerned judicial authorities, Al-Qabas reported yesterday quoting the sources.

Nuclear waste

Responding to an inquiry by MP Osama Al-Shaheen concerning reports about burying nuclear waste by US forces in a Kuwaiti landfill, the Environment Public Authority (EPA) denied the report and stressed that it exerts all possible efforts to protect the environment, natural resources and people's health. EPA added that it was about to sign a memo of understanding with the defense ministry to form a joint committee to examine the soil and weapon wastes at army camps.

By A Saleh and Agencies