ShareKUWAIT: MPs Hamdan Al-Azemi and Rakan Al-Nasef yesterday filed a request to grill Health Minister Ali Al-Obaidi over a variety of alleged violations and exploitation of Indian nurses recruited for the ministry. National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem said the grilling was supposed to be placed on the agenda of the Dec 29/30 sessions, but there is a possibility that the two sessions may be held next week instead. Accordingly, the grilling will be taken up for discussion on Dec 23 and the minister will have the right to demand a two-week postponement.
The grilling is based on five major issues which include medical errors, purchasing drugs and equipment at highly-inflated prices, "playing" with contracts and squandering public funds, administrative and financial corruption and exploiting the ministerial post.
The grilling charged the minister of failing to take any action towards reports that recruitment companies for the ministry were asking Indian nurses to pay as much as KD 7,000 each to be selected. It said that although the reports were published by the Indian press and raised by the Indian government, the minister made no move to investigate the allegations or take any action, which negatively impacted Kuwait's image abroad.
The two MPs said they sent a question to the minister on the issue but he denied that such practices existed, saying that ministry officials met with Indian embassy representatives over the issue. The two lawmakers said that failure to take any action by the health ministry forced the Indian government to intervene and limit the recruitment of nurses to just three government companies to prevent exploitation. There are thousands of Asian nurses, mainly Indians, working at public hospitals and medical centers in Kuwait, who have repeatedly complained of problems with recruitment companies.
The grilling alleges that the ministry has awarded a number of contracts to a private company that was established by the minister himself, although he left the company days after being appointed as minister. The grilling also claims that the ministry ordered payments to a US medical insurance company despite the expiry of contract, violations and not receiving the approval of supervisory bodies in Kuwait.
It said that based on the Audit Bureau report, the ministry purchased large quantities of medical equipment that it did not use and kept it in storage. It estimated the cost of some of the equipment at KD 5 million. The grilling accuses the health ministry of requesting extra funds of KD 17 million to pay for variation orders to a local company for a contract worth only KD 20 million. The ministry action came although the government's legal department ruled that the company is not entitled to the funds.
The grilling also cites suspected financial violations in a contract with a local company to register expatriates in the medical insurance system. It said that the ministry is still dealing with the company although the contract expired in July 2014. It also said that the Audit Bureau found that the number of medical insurance certificates issued was less than the number of expatriates who entered the country and the ministry allegedly did not investigate the issue.
The grilling accused the minister of planning to sign a "highly-suspicious" project for automated links between the ministry and Kuwaiti health offices abroad with a British company at a cost of around KD 55 million. The two lawmakers also accused the minister of being politically responsible for medical errors that resulted in the death of six Kuwaitis and an expatriate in public hospitals. They claimed the minister did not initiate any investigation into the errors and only issued media statements.
The grilling claims that the ministry has made a number of purchases of drugs and medical equipment at highly-inflated prices, sometimes more than double the actual price. It cited several examples for such purchases. The grilling also spoke of a large number of violations in contracts and projects by the ministry that cost state coffers tens of millions of dinars, and claimed the minister did not take any action. The grilling said that the public health situation in Kuwait has deteriorated and the minister is directly responsible for the chaotic conditions and must be held to account.
By B Izzak
