Special contract

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One of my friends, who had been working for another ministry before transferring to the private section some years ago, recently got an offer from the Ministry of Defense and he has signed a contract which says no end of service gratuity.

He got his indemnity from the previous ministry when he left that institution. Can you please give me details of such special contracts.

Are such contracts common for expatriates employed by all Ministries or is this one only a special contract. Is this end of service gratuity similar to the indemnity in Kuwait’s Labor Law.

Name withheld
Answer: We have answered similar questions a number of times but as a lot of people are in such a situation we will try to explain the same again.

First of all please remember that the Kuwait Labor Law is only for the private sector and not the public sector.

Secondly, a majority of the new contracts signed by the ministries are special contracts and all the terms have to be negotiated by both the parties. The use of such contracts was started after the independence of Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation in 1991.

Most of such contracts nowadays make no provision for gratuity or indemnity. Both gratuity and indemnity are the same but the ministries go according to the special contracts and can’t be made to pay anything in this regard unless there is a specific mention of such a payment in the contracts.

In the private sector, however, it is against the law to mention that there will be no indemnity. Even if there is such a provision and you sign the contract, it is against the Kuwait Labor Law and the contract is not only declared invalid, you are also paid the indemnity as mentioned in the law and nothing less.

This news has been read 7231 times!