Minister Hind Al-Subaih

KUWAIT: Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and State Minister for Planning and Development Affairs Hind Al-Subaih said the task force following up with the social assistance scam at the ministry, which previously discovered violations worth millions of dinars, continued checking violations and discovered new ones estimated at thousands of cases where money is paid undeservedly.

Subaih said the newly-discovered cases include several categories that deserve aid including divorced women, university students, families of students abroad and rent allowance, besides discovering thousands of cases who were asked to update their records to make sure they still deserve aid but did not respond within the two-month period given to them, which is a clear indication that these cases are receiving aid unlawfully.

Subaih said the number of new suspect cases is over 1,075, where doubts have been raised about them because of the presence of more than nine divorced women and other categories in one family, and these cases are repeated in more than 200 families, where the number of those who deserve aid in them varies between 4 to 9 divorced women, and these cases are being examined to make sure they deserve aid or not.

She said among the new suspect cases are nearly 2,000 cases of university students and families of students abroad and locally, because it was discovered that large number of students have dropped out of schools and others whose study period ended over eight years ago. Procedures to stop the aid are being taken.

By Meshaal Al-Enezi