Govt meets budgets committee over violations

KUWAIT: The National Assembly's health and labor committee yesterday approved amendments to the labor law to increase annual leave to 35 days in its final form and sent its report to the Assembly. The Assembly last Wednesday approved the amendment to raise the annual leave from the current 30 days to 35 days overwhelmingly in the first round of voting. The second voting is expected to take place on March 19.

The committee said in its report that the amendment will help more Kuwaitis join the private sector and replace expatriates, eventually leading to reducing the number of expatriates. The amendment however applies to both Kuwaitis and expatriates. Another amendment calls on companies to pay indemnity from the first year of employment and not after three years if the employee resigns. The committee has expressed fears that the government may back down from its initial support to the amendments. Ministers present in the Assembly last week voted for the amendments. Head of the committee MP Humoud Al-Khudhair said the panel included all remarks made by MPs during the debate last week.

The Assembly's budget affairs committee yesterday held an expanded meeting with the government headed by HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah and attended by seven ministers to discuss tackling financial and administrative reports made by supervisory bodies, especially the Audit Bureau.

Head of the panel MP Adnan Abdulsamad said there were remarks regarding the budget and that it was necessary for the prime minister to be aware of them. He said the meeting was fruitful and it was decided that a small ministerial committee will be formed to discuss the remarks with the budgets committee. The prime minister said after the meeting that the committee submitted proposals that are worth studying.

MP Riyadh Al-Adasani said the meeting focused on financial and administrative violations, and it was noticed there has been a drop in such violations. He said the committee called on the government to utilize some KD 20 billion in profits that have been kept by some state agencies without sending them to the finance ministry. He said that by utilizing those funds, there will be no need for the government to borrow to meet the deficit in the budget resulting from the fall in oil revenues.

By B Izzak