Kuwait suspends officials over killer manhole lid

Cairo: Kuwait’s Minister of Public Works Rana Al Fares has suspended road officials from duty after a manhole lid killed a young motorist, local media report.

Earlier this week, the lid had inexplicably flown from its place on a highway, hit a car and killed its Kuwaiti motorist, an incident that triggered an outcry in the country.

In response, the minister decided to suspend the head of the public Authority for Roads and Transportation (PART) as well as the director of highways maintenance pending completion of a current investigation into the incident.

She also referred to prosecution the company responsible for maintaining the road where the incident happened and ordered PART to form an urgent neutral committee to investigate the incident.

The 19-year-old victim was killed by the flying lid after it smashed into the front window of his car while driving on a road in Kuwait, local media said. The Kuwaiti road and land transport authorities vowed penalties if investigations blamed the incident on laxity or wrongdoing of its workers.

MP Abdulkarim Al Kandari condemned the incident and called on the minister of public works to resign in an acknowledgement of “political responsibility”, following the example of other government ministers in similar events in the past in Kuwait.

Angry activists said the incident was the result of road negligence