How long will our state boat remain docked?

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WE hope that His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled will read these lines carefully.

We know that Your Highness is not involved in corruption or is in support of the corrupt. We know that your integrity is unblemished. However, this is not enough, as it must be accompanied by serious work.

Negligence, hesitation, leaving matters to advisors, and delaying a decision can be considered as corruption in its own merit, as it leads to further backwardness and weakness of the state.

There are many examples that indicate the absence of the decision, such as the issue related to the work permits of residents who do not have a university degree and have reached 60 years of age. This matter took a year or more to resolve, and yet until today, the implementation of the new decision is yet to be enforced, despite the gross injustice in it to both the residents and the employers.

In the neighboring Gulf countries, similar matters were resolved years ago. Anyone who wants to visit any of these countries submits an online application, receives approval for the visa, and pays the prescribed fees. If he obtains a job, a residence permit is issued for him in accordance with the laws in force in those countries.

However, Kuwait has closed all the doors to everyone and there are decisions in this regard that seem to be from out of space. Of course this closure leads to more financial losses for the state due to the absence of a sound vision for the advancement of the national economy.

Your Highness, to be frank, you are presiding over the government of a country that is plundered by the high cost of projects, especially since this cost is much lesser in the neighboring countries.

For example, the cost of building the Burj Khalifa amounted to about USD 1.5 billion. On the other hand, it was announced that the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Tower, which is within the Silk City, would cost about USD 7 billion dollars and perhaps more if you take into account the bad habit trending in Kuwaiti projects, which is the change orders that cost the state billions of dinars and leads to delays in the completion of projects. The university city is a very strong  example of such a trend.

These huge costs are part of corruption, as well as nepotism and quotas imposed by MPs, relatives of ministers and influential people on the government in the distribution of projects. They fuelled the wastage of public money and led the country to record the largest deficit in its history. Radical treatments are still absent because the government is not in the process to address the issue that is in dire need for a resolution.

Once again, we remind you of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where King Salman bin Abdulaziz issued an order to recover the looted funds after the government discovered that about seven trillion riyals, or the equivalent of ten percent of the annual budget, had been embezzled over a period of 40 years. The Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman worked on recovering this amount through procedures that are now known to all.

Your Highness the Prime Minister, the corrupt will not be deterred if there is no serious accountability and a decisive decision, which is what the government and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers lack. The MPs have become convinced that they can get what they want just by threatening to interrogate you or any of the ministers. This means that the sail of the state will remain “nailed” until we have a decision-making government.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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