Minister Hind Al-Subaih

KUWAIT: Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and Minister of State for Planning and Development Hind Al-Subaih announced forming a special committee to investigate violations worth millions of dinars, which were detected in the social allowances sector. The violations came in the form of paying allowances to people who did not deserve them, including company owners and board members. Subaih added that the committee had detected around 650 cases earlier and it has now detected some new ones.

"Once the investigation is over, the tally will be declared and legal measures will be taken to hold those responsible for the violations legally accountable, including ministry officials and allowance recipients," she added, explaining that 85 company owners, business associates and board members were involved in the violations, in addition to 1,127 people who had been unlawfully receiving the allowances since 2008, adding up the total sum they received to KD 2,428,142.

Subaih said that allowances were previously stopped for 1,331 people who are currently indebted by KD 1,517,692, in addition to 454 cases that had been getting allowances from both MSAL and the disabled authority.

Penalties

Municipal Council member Nayef Al-Sour strongly slammed penalties and deduction of one-third of the monthly salaries of some of its Kuwaiti employees over violations committed by a cleaning company and some expatriate employees. He also called for an immediate investigation of those who took these measures.

Social care

Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor's (MSAL) Undersecretary Mutar Al-Mutairi said that the social care sector's efforts resulted in achieving 98 percent of its development plans for this year. Mutairi also denied evicting any of the family care tenants regardless of their age, and noted that that MSAL has been always working on making them feel integrated into the society as normal citizens. Mutairi stressed that within the measures currently in progress to transfer the responsibility of kindergartens to the Ministry of Education (MoE), a joint committee had been formed that met several times pending the transfer.

By Meshaal Al-Enezi