KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality plans to crack down on advertising agencies that have been placing signs and commercial ads on different occasions on various streets and public facilities, informed sources said. The sources added that the municipality will launch a wide-scale campaign in various governorates within a few days to take legal action against such agencies. Notably, some agencies have been damaging signs at various traffic lights and roundabouts, in addition to lampposts.

Housing units

Municipal Council Chairman Muhalhel Al-Khaled said that the council has allocated enough land to build 260,000 housing units over the past years, and blamed the Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) for the delay. "The total number of applications to get houses is 106,000," he underlined, noting that this was much less than the land given, and thus no more land should be allocated for housing. "The municipal council has done its part," he added, noting that the housing authority sometimes relinquishes lands like what it did in 1977 when it gave away 100 sq km in Salmi to the ministry of commerce and industry. Khaled added that the Subbiya city due to be built in 2018 once Jaber Bridge opens would include 55,000 housing units.

Small projects

Chairman of the National Fund for Small and Medium Enterprise Development Mohammed Al-Zuhair said projects approved until the end of the fiscal year 2015-2016 totaled 59 so far and that 21 projects were only approved last week. Zuhair added that the fund approved eight new projects yesterday. Responding to a question about executing small and medium projects' transactions electronically, Zuhair said applications could be filed online, but entrepreneurs would later have to visit the fund to discuss their projects and feasibility studies in person. The final decision will be sent by email.

By A Saleh