Right to free medical treatment, education, housing

MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei

KUWAIT: MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei filed a proposal to add two new articles to the Amiri decree number 17/1959 pertaining foreigners' residency. The first proposed article states that "the interior minister will be authorized to grant residency to non-Kuwaitis, upon their own requests, without work or sponsors, on the condition that he/she should be an Arab registered in the 1965 census, has lawfully resided in Kuwait for at least 40 consecutive years, has a lawful source of living and has good conduct." The proposal states that according to this article, applicant would be given a residency of five renewable years. The second article states that non-Kuwaitis granted residencies according to the above conditions would be treated as citizens in terms of receiving free medical treatment, disabled care, free education, driving licenses of all types and owning one housing unit.

Squandering

Head of the parliamentary financial affairs committee MP Salah Khorsheed urged the government to stop squandering funds, which was been prevalent at various ministries and government establishments as documents in State Audit Bureau reports, instead of rejecting bills proposed to help citizens face soaring prices. Khorsheed said the government had proposed a memo of strategic payroll alternatives that was not approved by lawmakers, who demanded achieving justice amongst the holders of the same qualifications in various bodies. Khorsheed also called for protecting the incentives of citizens in the educational and oil sectors, in addition to increasing child allowance and increasing rent allowance from KD 150 to KD 275.

Insurance

The parliamentary health affairs committee is scheduled to discuss health insurance for citizens in a meeting today to be attended by local medical officials. Informed sources explained that citizens' health insurance was still being considered and studied, and stressed that the government is not very enthusiastic about it because expansions of current hospitals and new medical centers will provide proper healthcare for citizens and resolve the problem of long waiting times. The sources added that launching health insurance hospitals for expats will make public ones only for citizens.

Bonds

The Central Bank of Kuwait will offer bonds in dinars for public bidding on Tuesday, Nov 28 according to tawarruq conditions. The bonds' duration will be 182 days and denominated at KD 50,000, KD 100,000, KD 500,000 and KD 1 million, with the aim of controlling liquidity in local markets.

By A Saleh