New monitoring body for following up ‘Kuwaitization’ and replacement of expatriate

The parliament’s employment committee is set to create a monitoring body in the next parliamentary term that will be responsible for following up ‘Kuwaitization’ and replacement plans in state departments, where unnecessary expatriate employees will be laid off to create jobs for citizens, parliamentary sources said.

The parliament has been very patient with the government with regards to implementing the policy of terminating expats and replacing them with citizens in various government bodies, the sources explained. “The government gave accounts of expats officially appointed, but withheld information about thousands of others hired through companies,” the sources underlined, referring to subcontracted employees. The sources explained that the body to be founded will be responsible for examining information provided to the employment committee, because some government bodies had been providing what they described as ‘misleading information’.

The sources demanded that expats’ certificates be endorsed by the Ministry of Higher Education, the foreign ministry and relevant embassies of the countries in which workers have studied, claiming that this is not done all the time presently. They argued that some expats take advantage of this situation by receiving degrees online, get hired in the public sector, and once they reach retirement age, they get appointed as advisors. “Such situations cannot continue any longer,” the sources warned, noting that the employment committee found employees appointed in certain bodies had appointed their siblings, cousins and children.

“Having controlled the entire body he works for, how can such an expat employee report in favor of the replacement policy?” the sources wondered.