KUWAIT CITY, Nov 22: Assistant Undersecretary for Labor Affairs at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Mansour Al-Mansour affirmed that the proposed Public Authority for Expatriates will be established in February 2011, reports Al-Jarida daily.

The authority will be an independent body and will be under the supervision of Minister of Social Affairs and Labor. It will tackle all issues related to bringing of expatriate workers in line with the new labor law.
Al-Mansour added that the ministry will stop issuing work permits for five years, except for certain activities and development projects, in order to reduce the number of expatriate personnel in the country and change the demographic structure of the country.

 “We have sent the authority’s file to the Cabinet and it will refer it to the Fatwa and Legislation Department for legal opinion,” he said, adding the file will then be forwarded to the National Assembly.
Speaking of other things, Al-Mansour said the ministry is allowed to stop the issuing of work permits and processing of residence transfers for a maximum of two weeks per year for inventory purposes.  He noted that nobody is exempted during this period.