Al-Majdali warns against leasing of commercial licenses to expats – Employers with less than 5 staff can pay directly

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KUWAIT CITY, Aug 7: Secretary General of the Government and Manpower Restructuring Program (GMRP) Fawzi Al-Majdali has cautioned against transforming the process of leasing commercial licenses to expatriates into another backdoor for redundancy that will marginalize the national manpower to make them license owners rather than employers, just as bogus appointments.

Al-Majdali said the situation has led to increase in the rate of outflow of money by expatriates to the tune of $18.1 billion per annum. He indicated the sum is about 53 percent of oil revenues valued at $39.5 billion on $40 per barrel rate. He noted the citizens of a particular country repatriated $4.8 billion to their home country. He reiterated the need to provide appropriate job opportunities for Kuwaitis who have initiatives and the owners of projects, indicating some projects and vocations are completely indigenized.

He listed some projects that should be restricted to Kuwaitis alone, citing mobile phone shops, repair workshops, photography and video shops, spare parts shops and car beautification. He stressed the vocations and professions go a long way in supporting the national economy, which will yield positive effect on the budget. “This is important, especially with recent annual reports issued by the World Bank ranking Kuwait third in the GCC and seventh globally on the list of countries that are the sources of money transfers, he said. Official spokesperson of the Public Relations and Media Department at Public Authority for Manpower Aseel Al-Mazeed announced that the authority has issued Decision No. 839/2016 allowing employers with less than five employees to disburse the salaries of their employees directly without the need to transfer the sums to local financial institutions. In a statement, Al-Mazeed said employers having less than five employees can pay the financial dues of his or her employees directly without depending on the local financial institutions based on the above mentioned decision.

“However, the employer must prepare a file proving the employees receive their financial dues on time, as per agreement”, Al-Mazeed noted. She explained that the department of labor inspection will be responsible for designing a special record file for employees who receive their financial dues directly from their employers without involving local financial institutions.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has disclosed that the actual deficit of the State reached KD 5.9 billion with 28.3 percent decrease in the estimated budget for fiscal 2015/2016, reports Al Anba daily. Finance Minister Anas Al-Saleh has estimated a budget deficit of KD 8.1 billion.

By Heba Al-Taweel Al-Seyassah Staff

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