Govt has no intention to impose taxes on Kuwaiti citizens’ income – Files of nationals working in pvt sector under review

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KUWAIT CITY, Jan 23: Minister of Finance and acting Minister of Oil Anas Al-Saleh has affi rmed that the government has no intention to impose taxes on citizens’ income, reports Al-Anba daily. He said the ongoing discussions about the economic crisis are related to tax on net profits of companies, which is currently in the process of approval as one of the solutions for the State budget in cooperation with the National Assembly. He affirmed the government will not touch the daily living of citizens as per the instruction of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. He reiterated the proposed measures include the regulation of subsidies which should be given to rightful beneficiaries and finding alternative sources of national income rather than total dependence on oil.

Meanwhile, as part of measures to deal with deficit in the budget, the Government has notified the MPs of its intention to reduce subsidies for national personnel and to review the allowance given to the category, reports Al-Shahed daily. They pointed to the government conducting an overall review of the files of national personnel who are employed in private sector in order to exclude those violating law by receiving financial benefit without actually working, considering over 50,000 national personnel registered in private sector benefit from allowances valued at KD 180 million. In a related development, the parliament is planning to reorganize its priorities as to laws and projects presented by the Executive and Legislative authorities, before changing the mechanism and agenda of upcoming parliamentary sessions.

The same sources added the current laws and projects require total review, besides rescheduling parliamentary and governmental priorities. Also, the Priorities Commitee should intensify coordination with the Government and other parliamentary committees regarding laws to be presented.

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has selected 127 jobs allocated for non-Kuwaitis in the Ministry of Health from the total number of non-Kuwaitis occupying 16 job classifications in the budget of the ministry for fiscal 2016/2017 in order to suspend them, reports Al-Anba daily quoting sources. Sources explained the purpose behind the selection of these functions is to completely remove them from the ministry’s budget for fiscal 2017- 2018. Sources said the decision is based on the study conducted by the CSC annually in accordance with the replacement policy in governmental bodies as per law number 13/2007 on the Kuwaitization of governmental jobs.

The campaign launched by Ministry of Electricity and Water to rationalize consumption of power and water has been ongoing, reports Al- Rai daily. In 2014, KD 4.65 billion was spent for electricity and water subsidy, which is equivalent to the electricity budget in Egypt, a country with population of almost 90 million people. During a seminar titled ‘Farwaniya — The Governorate of Sustainability’, Assistant Undersecretary for Water Operations and Maintenance Work at the ministry Khalifa Al- Fareej said the ministry is working on spreading awareness about reducing power and water consumption through several ways, one of which is visiting diwaniyas, so that people are aware of the efforts being exerted by the ministry to provide electricity and water to the people of Kuwait. Meanwhile, Head of the Technical Committee for Rationalization in the government sector Ali Al-Eidi says the committee, which was formed in 2006, now coordinates with 34 governmental bodies and has so far saved KD1 billion for the country using different methods.

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