‘Exodus of expatriates to adversely affect development of Kuwait’

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“AFTER lean months, restaurants and cafes have begun to breathe following the Cabinet’s decision to allow them to receive customers according to health requirements, and this step, we hope, will be promising and a breakthrough to reopen the airport for travel, provided that the expected openness includes at least a first step for everyone, including the arrivals who reside in Kuwait since the connection with their families was cut off for about two years, and then there are those who are compelled to stay for fear of traveling to their homelands and not being able to return again to Kuwait for more than 3 years,” columnist Mohammad Al-Jalahmah wrote for Al-Anba daily.

“The segment that I talk about is estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and certainly their stay in the country has greatly affected the commercial movement, especially they leave for their countries with clothes, gifts, etc, in addition to the travel suspension, which inflicted millions of losses for airlines, and the tourism and travel sector.

“Although all medical reports say that the dreaded coronavirus is not capable of affecting those who have received the vaccine, the issue of not allowing people to leave and return to the country again continues.

“It is not bad to take precautionary measures to prevent those who come from high-risk countries but the continuation of the lockdown in conjunction with the vaccination of a number that may exceed 3 million people by the end of this month is unjustified and is not in the public interest.

“The issue of travel and the return of citizens who have been vaccinated is a duty not to discuss the issue whether to allow them to return or not, and if the curfew is permissible at the time of the peak of the epidemic it is no longer valid in the face of the vaccine and its effectiveness according to medical reports issued by respected scientific bodies.

“I was taken aback by the survey conducted by the German network ‘Internations’, which revealed that a third of the people living in Kuwait have changed their future plans due to the repercussions of the coronavirus, and that they are planning at the moment to accelerate their departure from the country before the dates they had planned to leave whether going back to their countries or searching for another country to settle and work.

“The report clearly shows the impatience of the expatriates who were waiting for a breakthrough after receiving the vaccine, but they found themselves ignored by the government, and there is a message that they are not wanted anymore in the country.

“I hope that this report will not be ignored with a reminder that Kuwait needs more development and is on the way to projects that necessarily require expatriate manpower.”

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