Minister attends rain investigations committee’s meeting

KUWAIT: The National Assembly's financial and economic affairs committee is scheduled to discuss during its meeting today morning the proposed amendments on the Amiri law number 61/1976 and law number 110/2014 pertaining indemnities of those covered by the social security, pension and military personnel pension laws, which were initially approved last Tuesday. The recent rain investigations committee will also resume its discussions today in the presence of Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Municipality Affair Hossam Al-Roumi, as well as the acting head of the State Audit Bureau and Kuwait Engineers Society chairman.

Follow-up reports
Minister of Social Affairs and Labor And Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hind Al-Sabeeh said the biannual report on the 2018-2019 development plan is fully committed to article 10 of law number 7/2016 pertaining development planning, which states that "relevant ministers will submit quarterly follow-up reports to the parliament after having them reviewed by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development and approved by the Cabinet," Sabeeh added that following up the medium-term and annual development plans relies on an automated system the planning council constantly develops in collaboration with various participating bodies.

Mega housing projects
A government report issued by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development about providing citizens with housing welfare showed that the plan aims at reducing the number of citizens on housing waiting lists as well as reducing the waiting period as much as possible. The report added that five mega housing projects are being executed in the long run through building integrated cities and providing them with infrastructure, supplies, energy and services.
The report also showed that 84 percent of Jaber Al-Ahmad City has been completed, while the South Saad Al-Abdullah and South Sabah Al-Ahmad projects are still in the preliminary stages. The Mutlaa residential city project is facing some technical obstacles such as high voltage towers and military leftovers from the Iraqi invasion, added the report.

70 percent
The Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) recently honored the engineering department of the Ministry of Awqaf's mosque sector for their efforts and cooperation with MEW in cutting power and water consumption in various mosques. In this regard, MEW's energy and conservation manager Iqbal Al-Tayyar said switching off all air conditioners and unnecessary electric devices in various mosques started on Nov 1 and this helped save around 70 percent of the energy used. Tayyar added air-conditioners will be switched on by the beginning of March when temperatures increase. She noted that all mosques maintenance contracts condition the use of LED lights to save power and advanced pipefittings to save water.

By A Saleh