Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), headed by its chief executive officer (CEO), has by far testified that it has given the petroleum sector emperors, fundamentalists and others the free hands over the corporation without any accountability, letter or a glimmer of hope in terms of stopping the multi-million operational anomalies in our oil industry.

This industry has been experiencing the worst period in its life since the nationalization of Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), as well as the establishment of the remaining service and operational petroleum companies by the government of the State of Kuwait. Millions are wasted without any accountability. This wastage was initiated by a fundamentalist minister under the pretext that the money came from the Future Generations Fund, not from the general budget.

The Council of Ministers passed this matter to him during the time of darkness. Millions of people remained on the tractors allotted for the employees of oil companies; as if they were the ones who discovered oil and that they could spend or give alms to the government of Kuwait and its people using the money earned from selling oil, which is a gift from God, not from His creations.

I wish that extravagant spending was stopped as these people took what they do not deserve from our public funds. They even went beyond the financial and administrative irregularities that filled the annual reports of the State Audit Bureau (SAB). However, there is no one to call regarding this. In this context, I am proud to say that when I was minister of the institution; I used to stress the need to respond to SAB’s comments during the meetings of the Board of Directors of KPC in order to hold responsible those who committed mistakes and God bears witness to this. In recent days, KPC has been drawing attention to what it believes to be white points covering the blackness of its mismanagement and repeated mistakes.

These white points include the publication of the photo of KPC’s leader on the front page of economic publications winning global awards that we heard for the first time in our lives -- the last of which is the so-called ‘United Nations Climate Action Award for 2021’. Everyone was amazed by the news! In addition to the fact that we heard about this award for the first time, it is for the year 2021 and barely four months have passed since the beginning of this year!!

The head of KPC boasted about another award, which I do not remember because it does not arouse any attention or interest. It is a disaster that days after the establishment’s senior official got the awards, Al-Qabas daily published on May 10 a news item written by our colleague -- Saad Al-Shetty, revealing the misfortunes of KPC and its trivial subsidiaries. The news says: KPC violated the decision of SAB to stop the disbursement of financial reward for a female employee, which was estimated at KD380,000 only.

Nevertheless, KPC pledged at the Court of Appeals that it will not disburse this reward until the Court of Cassation issues its ruling regarding the cancellation of the promotion of the director working at KPC and the subsequent procedures. This is the opinion of the Public Prosecution and the Court of Cassation will most likely take the same decision!

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Email: [email protected]

By Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli

Former Minister of Oil