Expats with non-specialised skills won’t be given work in govt sector

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CSC should implement unification of salary scale: MP

KUWAIT CITY, July 9: Parliament’s Committee for Replacement and Employment Crisis MP Khalil Al-Saleh affirmed that the committee will extract information from the backyards of the concerned authorities in terms of the employment file, reports Al-Rai daily.

He revealed about the establishment of an oversight agency tasked to follow up replacement and employment aspects, stressing, “The agency will go through any information we receive in order to verify it because several information that we receive contradict reality, especially in terms of the number of expatriates working in the government sector”.

During an interview with the daily, MP Al-Saleh affirmed that no expatriate working in non-specialized technical jobs will be allowed to work in the government sector. He explained that there are Kuwaitis registered in the Civil Service Commission (CSC) who are looking for jobs due to which “expat filtration” should be carried out. For expatriates with university degrees, they should attest their academic certificates in Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and their embassy in Kuwait.

MP Al-Saleh went on to explain that there are short-term and mediumterm plans. The short-term plan entails annual plan that deals with the current situation and works on accommodating Kuwaitis who are looking for jobs based on their qualifications.

The medium-term plan is a five-year plan which will require coordination between CSC and Kuwait University concerning the labor market. He stressed that CSC should be obliged to implement replacement strategy and unification of salary scale, set up a plan to encourage new graduates to work in the private sector with their qualifications and training, and issue legislations for achieving job security and stability.

MP Al-Saleh indicated about the public anger backed by parliamentary decisions for confronting any sector that fails to replace expatriates and employ Kuwaitis. He also warned about “the unemployment ghost which continues to haunt the youths of Kuwait”.

Regarding levying the remittances of expatriates, the MP insisted on endorsing the remittance tax law for expatriates as a way of generating new income under the pretext of diversifi- cation of income resources. MP Khalil Al-Saleh had submitted the proposal to the 2013 Parliament and the current Parliament, affirming his commitment to see the proposal tabled in the Parliament.

He claimed that he is not discouraged by the reservations of some MPs and officials concerning this matter. He said, “The money exits the country in plenty but the local spending continues to shrink. This causes market stagnation”. MP Al-Saleh stressed that expatriates in other Gulf countries pay more than what expatriates in Kuwait are asked to pay, and the expatriates there do so with open mind, as well as the money they pay to foreign exchange companies without any problem. He downplayed the claim that levying expatriates’ remittances might create an appetite for black market and also affect the real estate industry, affirming that such proper will not occur if proper control and oversight is put in place along with strict enforcement of the law.

Al-Saleh stressed that the file concerning population structure needs courage for dealing with it, obliging the government to set stringent measures and genuine remedies to curb population imbalance, and provide a clear objective and vision on dealing with this issue. He indicated that his parliamentary committee follows up on the government and the mechanism it uses to deal with the population structure file through implementation of replacement policies in the government jobs for stabilizing the number of expatriates and getting rid of marginal labor force.

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