Government rejects plea for job nationalisation

The government of Kuwait has rejected a parliamentary proposal to speed up nationalisation in public sector jobs, saying highly qualified foreigners were still needed by the ministries.

Islamist lawmaker Faisal Al Muslim had proposed that the government raise the rate of replacement of expatriates from 10 per cent to 15 per cent in a bid to create more jobs for nationals.

Talking to reporters at the end of the parliamentary season yesterday, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Mohammad Daif Allah Sharar said that even the 10 per cent rate was no longer possible to implement because ministries and public establishments need expatriates in technical jobs.

He said a decision was issued in 1997 stipulating that ministries must replace 10 per cent of their expatriate staff every year in an attempt to find more jobs for Kuwaiti graduates, whose numbers have been rising.

"The decision was implemented for two years, after which a number of ministries complained that they were no longer capable of sustaining that rate because they could not find enough qualified Kuwaitis to run highly technical jobs," the minister added.

"It was found that it was imperative to change that decision because it was difficult to continue implementing it as ministries stressed they needed their expatriate staff to run the day-to-day affairs," he said.

The minister said that as a result, a new decision was issued in 2002 stipulating that each government department would prepare a study about the number of expatriates they can terminate without affecting the standard of their services.

The Civil Services Council, which supervises and draws state policies on employment, accepted the viewpoints of the ministries, which said they needed skilled expatriate to run educational, health and other technical services, he added.

"The ministries and departments complained that they could not find citizens qualified to run such services effectively," Sharar said.

The government and its establishments employ just under 100,000 expatriates, mostly in the ministries of health, education, justice, energy (oil and electricity) and several other departments.

The writer is a journalist based in Kuwait.