Cost Of Domestic Workers Rises To Kd 1,500

Amid the challenge of high commodity prices and the rise in cost of services witnessed each year as Ramadan approaches, inspection teams affiliated to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry have embarked on extensive campaigns to curb artificial prices hike and violations in the domestic recruitment offices that raise the cost of recruitment or hire for citizens and expatriates on hourly basis.

In this regard, Al-Seyassah daily embarked on a market survey to discover the high cost of hiring domestic workers, which has shot up to KD 1,500 per housemaid (a difference of over KD 500 from the original cost of KD 990 announced by concerned authorities).

It was gathered that the cost of housemaid now ranges from KD1,000-KD1,700 depending on several criteria, chief among them the nationality. In this case, Filipinos are the costliest, followed by Indians and Sri Lankans, while Africans are the cheapest.

On the contrary, sources at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry informed that inspection campaigns conducted by the officials led to the issuance of several citations against traders of consumer items who hike prices without legal justification. They also withdrew licenses or fined several domestic recruitment offices over their involvement in inflating the prices of hiring domestic workers beyond KD 990. 

Some of the offices were also found guilty of encouraging housemaids to escape so that they could be re-registered under new sponsors, besides hiring them out on hourly basis. They urged the affected citizens and expatriates not to relent in submitting necessary complaints to the Consumer Protection Department concerning undue hike in prices of consumables or domestic  workers.

The public revenues expected to be recorded in the 2018/2019 budget are about 20 billion dinars, noting that the oil revenues until the end of last March was about 17.8 billion dinars, while non-oil revenues in the same period was 2.2 billion dinars, reports Al-Rai daily quoting responsible sources.

These figures are from Kuwait’s sales of oil which are recorded in the budget of 2018/2019, higher by about 4.5 billion dinars in revenues predicted by the Minister of Finance Dr Nayef Al-Hajraf in previous statements, which is likely to reach 13.3 billion dinars in oil revenues during this year representing an increase in non-oil revenues by about half a billion dinars than expected.

The Farwaniya Traffic Department witnesses overcrowding because of the population density of expatriates in the governorate, especially because of renewal of driving licenses each year and add to this the lack of sufficient staff as observed by the Al-Qabas daily during a tour of the department. This is the most prominent issue which causes confusion in work delays when it comes to the completion of transactions.

Informed sources told the daily despite the processing of transactions which are determined by coupon number, the renewal of driving licenses each year has ‘confused’ the work and doubled the number of people visiting the department.

During the tour, the daily saw the commitment on the part of the staff to ensure the applications meet the conditions as stipulated in the law and discovered that the department completed about 1,300 transactions of various types and rejected about 400 because they did not meet the conditions.

The sources pointed out that the Department of Driving Licenses work two shifts (morning and evening). As for the services provided to the elderly and people with special needs, the sources explained that the Director of the Department Colonel Khaled Habib has issued clear and explicit instructions to take into account their circumstances and not to make them wait and complete their transactions if they meet all the legal conditions without complications. 

According to informed sources the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) has asked the banks about the possibility of being a member of the board of directors of the joint banking services ‘KNET’, and identified four main alternatives in this regard, reports Al-Rai daily.

Sources added that the Central Bank’s entry into the KNET board is to be an equal contributor with the remaining 11 members, or by a larger share, or by a minority stake, and finally to get membership without owning any of the company’s shares, in which case the CBK shall be an independent member.

The committee explained that this can be achieved through amending the text of the company’s Stautes. The legislator, in accordance with the Commercial Companies Law, has approved the amendment of the Statute for KNET, indicating that the CBK has asked about its membership in the company’s Articles of Association, without prior approval. The committee concluded that it is difficult to achieve this because there is an obstacle in the Companies Law that prevents the company from achieving this.

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