Oh leadership … situation is as it has been despite 13 parliaments and 30 governments

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IF you count the number of parliaments that we have had since liberation to this day, the governments that have been formed since then, and the outputs since then, you will definitely be surprised. None of them either worked to meet the aspirations of the people, nor developed a productive renaissance plan that could meet the aspirations.

Most of them instead fell into the trap of hiding behind the guise of arguments and disagreements with the parliamentarians. Since 1992 to this day, there have been 14 National Assemblies and about 30 governments, but none of them put in their program a responsible and realistic plan that can achieve the popular demands. Therefore, is it possible to bet on the two authorities now for the advancement of the country?

Let us take for instance the housing crisis that has been ongoing since before the liberation. What did successive governments do to solve it? How did the parliament perform? Did any of them do anything that could be relied on?

The housing crisis still exists and is in fact getting worse day by day, because none of those who are responsible for this matter care about it. In short, it is a source of profit for many of them, and therefore any solution will be at their expense.

That is why despite the random distribution of plots in some areas, the crisis continues. On the other hand, other countries resolved it with little effort through realistic decisions that meet the needs of the state first, and the population second, and grant social stability to citizens through self-sufficient housing cities in which all services are provided.

These goals were not achieved in Kuwait, because the idea behind the establishment of the Kuwait Credit Bank remained ink on a paper. Currently, the bank’s capital stands at about KD 3.3 billion, and lends citizens about KD 3 billion, but still it falls under the inability to fulfill the many applications submitted to it, in addition to the administrative routine between the Ministry of Oil, Kuwait Municipality and the Ministry of Finance with regard to the allocation of land, which made the citizens wait for over 20 years to get their “dream house.”

On the other hand, there are several solutions, including amending the bank law so that commercial banks – both local and international – participate in it by guaranteeing the state the interest of soft loans, and these institutions can then work to grant them to citizens. Also, approved international companies can be chosen to pay the cost of construction of cities from scratch until securing housing for the citizens, just like the way some Gulf countries did. If the borrower is unable to pay the installments, he then can mortgage the house.

There is no doubt that the need for housing puts pressure on citizens, some of whom are forced to borrow in order to obtain a house.

On the other hand, this constitutes a new obstacle to meeting the needs of citizens with limited income, which pushes them to acquire more debt.

That is why consumer loans also constituted an eternal problem that led to a crisis of inability to pay, and caused some to resort to issuing cheques without balance, or trust bonds, which benefited the stakeholders who are part of the deep state by investing in the pains and concerns of the people.

When all these governments and parliaments are unable to meet the needs of the people, the defect is not in the laws, but in the wrong strategy on which political practice and the approach to people’s problems were built. This in itself calls for reconsidering the mentality of dealing with crises.

This is due to the fact that the authorities exist to manage the affairs of the people, and work to solve the expected problems. This is what a state does, and where officials always look ahead, and not at their ego and their own interests.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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