Review of service charges eyed – Health officials meet on issue
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KUWAIT CITY, Jan 4: Assistant Undersecretary for Legal Affairs at Ministry of Health Dr Mahmoud Al-Abdulhadi revealed that the Council of Undersecretaries at the ministry, during its recent meeting, discussed about “reviewing some charges of health services in accordance to their actual charges but ensuring expatriates can afford them”.
In a statement he issued following the meeting, which was chaired by the Minister of Health Dr Jamal Al-Harbi, Dr Abdulhadi said, “The review of the health service charges will definitely lead to increase in the prices but on a very short scale so that expatriates are still able to afford the necessary medical treatments and are not faced with any unnecessary financial burden”.
He explained that these charges will include charges for X-ray and laboratory services. However, he was quick to add that the increase in these charges has no relation to some studies on the possibility of increasing the health insurance for expatriates to KD 130 annually.
Dr Abdulhadi indicated that the council also discussed the need to cover all loopholes in this aspect in terms of protecting the public fund and improving ways to collect the charges. Furthermore, Director of Capital Municipality Engineer Ammar Al-Ammar Tuesday announced the work plan of the sector as per directives from the head of Capital and Mubarak Al-Kabeer Municipalities Engineer Faisal Sadiq Al- Juma’ to conduct inspection campaigns and checking of industrial buildings while giving prompt response to letters received from various institutions.
In this context, Director of Audit and Follow-up Engineer Khaled Al-Rashidi said the sector supervised and reviewed 120 activities and generated KD 16,030 through issuance of 227 certificates, 90 engineering licenses, and 166 pledges. It also honored 3 requests to boost the flow of electricity, supervised to the connection of electricity to 123 buildings, and inspected 189 industrial buildings.
Meanwhile, Public Relations Department at Kuwait Municipality stated the licenses services sector of the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Municipality in November, 2016 collected KD 25,841 in fees. For his part, Director of Municipal Services Licensing Department Abdullatif Sayed Al- Sharhan stressed the campaign on restaurants, shops and malls will continue over an indeterminate period to check unlicensed and expired advertisements, as per directives from Mubarak Al-Kabeer Municipal Branch Chief Engineer Samia Al-Enzi.
By Marwa Al-Bahrawi Al-Seyassah Staff and Agencies
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