KUWAIT: The parliamentary legislative affairs committee is scheduled today to discuss granting citizenship to Kuwaiti women's children, cancelling the memberships of MPs Waleed Al-Tabtabae and Jamaan Al-Harbash and a number of housing welfare issues. In other news, MP Safa Al-Hashem said that she prefers being nominated for the membership of the parliamentary financial and budget affairs committees, considering them a top priority for her in view of what she described as "many unsolved issues." Hashem added that lawmakers will demand extending the tenure of the parliamentary 'replacement' committee (concerned with replacing expatriate labor with Kuwaiti employees), because it tasks are not complete and the government has been stalling in disclosing the true number of expat employees even as unemployment among Kuwaitis increased by six percent.

Labor capacity doubled

The Public Authority for Housing Welfare announced that the Chinese contractor executing the second phase of Mutlaa residential city project has started doubling its labor capacity by adding 1,000 new workers from the local market. Informed sources said the contractor's decision was made in response to the authority's demands to increase manpower and cover any shortage, which will be done shortly by bringing more workers from China.

Sewage proejct

The Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects (KAPP) is scheduled to sign a contract today with the investor who won the tender of expanding the Umm Al-Haiman sewage project, said informed sources, noting that the ceremony will be attended by Minister of Public Works and Municipal Affairs Hosam Al-Roumi and a number of officials at both the public works and finance ministries. Separately, Roumi held a lengthy meeting to discuss the consequences of the recent rains in Riqqa and Hadiya, during which he stressed the need to prevent the same from happening again and urged everyone to exert utmost efforts to do so.

Smart meters

Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) Undersecretary Mohammad Bushehri stressed that using smart meters will facilitate collecting fees and end the problem of accumulating unpaid bills. Bushehri added 5,000 such meters have been installed so far and that using them will help both the ministry and consumers.

By A Saleh