Country is being looted, no doubt

This news has been read 1980 times!

IT is good that the government refused to attend the session of the National Assembly yesterday in order to clarify the authorities of both arms of governance – the executive and the legislative – and not to accept encroachment on its authority.

People will also not accept the continuation of the bickerings that prevailed in the previous parliaments as if the parliamentarians are the rulers of this country.

This government has many issues that cannot be postponed. It cannot waste time on political skirmishes aimed at raising the electoral score of certain MPs.

Rather, it must be made clear that the parliament’s mission is legislation and oversight, and not to infringe on the authority of any minister.

In this situation, it is not possible to find solutions to the country’s many problems that were caused by the weakness of the previous councils of ministers, and led to an abnormal situation. In that situation, it was, to say the least, a rule of chaos, and not exercising all of its work authority in accordance with the Constitution.

One of the issues that must be addressed in the current government is the black hole called subsidies, which consumes more than one third of the state’s general budget.

In this regard, it must be made clear that the tone of “do not touch the citizen’s pocket” is an excuse for more wastage.

The large sums of money spent in this regard go to those who are seeking to accumulate their wealth, while the citizens benefit nothing from it.

In fact, about 20 percent of the subsidy budget is sufficient to raise the salaries of low-income earners, improve their lives, and get rid of the tone of “social justice” aimed at continuing physical coercion on citizens.

It is inconceivable that 120,000 Kuwaitis are banned from traveling as a result of civil debt rulings that are not criminalized in the entire world except in Kuwait, while the rest of that amount goes to investment spending on projects that the country needs.

Administrative work must also be organized, especially after the past few days. The implementation of the fingerprint attendance system on teachers revealed that the majority of them are not in Kuwait. Some of them even came from overseas trip to attend the protest. There is no doubt that the parliamentarians who supported them knew that these people were a burden on public finances, and that they were one of the reasons for the deterioration of education. What applies to teachers applies to the rest of the public sector employees.

All of this also indicates that the country is undoubtedly being plundered and looted. Hence, reform measures have become a crucial necessity. This can be done by imposing taxes like other Gulf countries where the money collected is used to improve the income of employees and citizens, and reduce the burden on the budgets of those countries.

Another reform measure is to work on eliminating decisions that increase the complexity of opening the country, especially where unfair conditions were set to allow visitors to enter.

It is as if the intention is to continue with more closures. For this reason, the government must seek to solve the problem of visit visas in a way that is proportional to moving the economic wheel, not obstructing it.

Therefore, cooperation between the two authorities must be based on a correct constitutional standard, which is working to revise the laws, eliminate the radical ones, approve modern legislation, and not make them a reason for more parliamentary control over the government, or for the ministers to become employees of the MPs.

It is time for Kuwait to have authorities that are capable of exercising their authority without one overstepping the other, because the continuation of this will only serve those who do not care if the country gets ruined.

This is why the government did well in emphasizing on the limits of each of the two authorities. From this standpoint, the National Assembly must either fulfill its national responsibilities or leave.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 1980 times!