Cairo: Kuwait’s state administrative watchdog has reported inaccuracies in lists of employees at the Ministry of Social Affairs allegedly eligible for financial rewards offered to workers during the fight against COVID-19 last year, according to a local newspaper.
Head of the Civil Service Commission Ahmed Al Jassar has written to Minister of Social Affairs and Awqaf Isa Al Kandari highlighting the commission’s remarks on the dispatched lists of the ministry’s civil servants, Al Jarida newspaper said.
The commission said that after its examination of the lists presented by the ministry, it has found that some employees are not qualified for receiving the second-category rewards, which are confined to government employees who work at border crossings or quarantine facilities.
The commission has also spotted a “glaring exaggeration” in the number of the days on which civil servants allegedly worked during the pandemic.
Some employees were noted as to have worked for as many as 98 days running from February 24 to May 31. Others had purportedly worked for 81 days.
The calculation apparently failed to omit the days that the employees in question did not report to workplaces including the weekends and the Eid Al Fitr Muslim holiday as well as the days when a total curfew to curb the coronavirus spread was enforced.
The commission, according to the report, requested an official notification on the actual number the employee did show up at the workplace during the period from March 12 to May 31.
Last May, the Kuwaiti government approved financial remunerations for workers who did well in the fight against the pandemic in the country. The government said it would designate as martyrs the workers on the front lines or support services in the governmental bodies who were infected and died during work.
The government added that workers engaged in battling COVID-19 over the period from February 24 to May 31 last year will be divided in three categories: the high-risk category covers health and interior ministries’ workers; the second covers government employees who have since done their jobs; and third is related to government employees tasked with doing jobs other than theirs during the curfew in the country.
The three categories are divided into high-risk, medium-risk and low risk.
Workers, who have contracted the virus, will have the privilege of either getting the double of their monthly pay or a bonus of 8,000 dinars for one time.
Ministries were later addressed to send lists of the names of their workers to the Civil Service Commission according to the aforementioned categories.
