KUWAIT: The National Assembly's health and labor committee yesterday rejected a proposal calling to make the health insurance fee 10 percent of expatriates' salaries as stated in the official labor contract. The proposal was first submitted by former MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei and later adopted by MP Mohammad Hayef. Regardless of the amount of the salaries of expatriates, the proposal calls to fix the annual health insurance fee at 10 percent of the salary in a bid to help low-paid workers.

At present, expatriates pay around KD 50 annually in health insurance, in addition to additional charges for various medical services. According to reports, the government is planning to raise this amount to KD 130 per year. Rapporteur of the manpower resources committee MP Osama Al-Shaheen called for an urgent legislative intervention by the Assembly to impose definitive percentages of employment for Kuwaitis and make it mandatory on the government to facilitate the replacement of expats in public jobs with Kuwaitis.

Shaheen said the issue should not be left at the government's discretion, adding that an expatriate community has reached one million, while two others together make up that figure. He called for a fair distribution of foreign communities, saying that MPs must intervene in this issue because government measures have been very slow. The lawmaker said the panel will in the coming meetings invite government bodies concerned with replacement and Kuwaitization, like the Civil Service Commission, Supreme Planning Council, the manpower authority and others to discuss government plans for creating jobs for Kuwaiti graduates.

Meanwhile, MP Riyadh Al-Adasani yesterday threatened to grill the prime minister if a former lawmaker accused of receiving money from the government was not referred to the Anti-Corruption Authority. MP Al-Humaidi Al-Subaei said yesterday that a number of new ministers appear to be incompetent and threatened to grill them.