KUWAIT CITY, Jan 31, (KUNA): Candidates for upcoming parliamentary elections have called for raising salaries of employees to cope with soaring cost of living and allocating more plots of lands to resolve the housing problem.
Eidan Al-Khaldi, candidate of the Fifth Constituency, called on the government to hike payments of the civil servants, noting married citizens have been struggling to make ends meet in shadow of soaring prices of goods and services, and take into consideration that number of members of a family in the country is generally large.
The government should take action to curb greedy merchants who have been monopolizing some commodities, he said in a statement issued recently. Employees with fixed salaries are taking the brunt of effects of soaring cost of living, resulting from hiking prices of oil, agricultural products and services, namely transportation, said Al-Khaldi.
In shadow of inflation, 6-8 percent per year, this segment of the employees is suffering from deteriorating level of living standard, thus the government must intervene to curb dramatic hike of prices, he stressed.
He also called for promotion of civil servants on equal basis and raising allotments for the retirees.
Meanwhile, Dr Khaldah Al-Kheder, running for the Second Constituency, urged the oil authorities to work out a timetable for “liberalizing lands to lower prices of plots and contribute” to resolving the housing problem.
The woman nominee called for enacting new laws, intended to secure social equality, financial disclosures and combating corruption.
She also called for building a university complex, increasing number of students studying abroad and enacting new laws for housemaids, injury at work and health insurance.
Al-Kheder shared her fellow candidate the view that family income must be increased in the face of drastic hike of the costs of living.
Parliamentary elections are to be held on Feb 2. Kuwait has prepared for the upcoming event at the public and private levels.