We’ve been waiting for you

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Because of the few pleasant issues around us, I find it necessary from time to time to pay sincere tribute to a minister or undersecretary or government official and praise them because they are like the stars that light up the government sky which is more often cloudy.

The Minister of Commerce and Industry Khalid Al-Roudhan is one of them. He has succeeded despite his relatively young age in removing the dust from several important economic laws and revived them. He is supporting new laws in favor of young people, encouraging Kuwaitizing jobs and creating thousands of new ones, especially for new graduates – annual outputs of the universities – into the labor market that do not have enough jobs for them because of the lack of specialization or lack of need.

Kuwait was the first Gulf State to issue an insurance law almost 60 years ago but it unfortunately became the last one to keep pace with trade and economic developments and adjusted them to keep pace with the development of the sector which in itself is an achievement attributed to the Minister of Commerce.

We hope that his efforts will continue and that a public body will be set up to oversee the vital and dangerous insurance sector which invests more than 13 billion dinars instead of remaining under the supervision of a dilapidated administration in the ministry or following the Capital Markets Authority whose officials originally do not prefer supervision of the insurance sector.

There claim by those who oppose the establishment of a new body under the pretext there are many bodies and should be reduced in number is illogical. Despite the existence of a large number of bodies that are unnecessary, the existence of inefficient bodies should not mean not creating new ones, when needed.

The insurance sector is in need of an independent and firm body due to the large size of the market and the existence of many irregularities in it, add to this there is a need to review the status of many parasitic companies especially some that are called ‘Takaful’. They do not work properly most of them suffer from financial problems because of their great ability towards the interpretation of the religious texts to achieve their interests.

Therefore, the number of such companies mushroomed and exceeded more than the number of ordinary insurance companies. Thirty years ago, I invested in Takaful insurance companies but never received any dividends, which shows the need for a firm control of the insurance market, a task that cannot be managed efficiently by weak administration in the Ministry of Commerce.

The approval of 34 members of the National Assembly on the draft law regulating insurance system is good and this will provide the opportunity to introduce some fundamental amendments before it is finally approved.

Oh Roudhan! the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was in a dire need of you.

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By Ahmad alsarraf

This news has been read 13794 times!