By Meshaal Al-Enezi

KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality Director Ahmed Al-Manfouhi strongly instructed various municipality officials to make sure Ministry of Health's (MoH) coronavirus-related precautionary measures are followed in various barbershops, salons, spas, sports and social clubs and cafes. "We are more concerned now with people's safety rather than law enforcement," Manfouhi stressed, noting that upon MoH instructions, municipality inspection teams recently closed 33 cafes and 41 wedding halls for violating the recent regulations. "262 citations and 459 warning notices have been filed so far, in addition to closing 33 cafes," he concluded.

Meanwhile, the municipality announced Ahmadi inspectors had filed 140 citations and 120 warning notices and closed 15 wedding halls. Capital teams filed 44 citations and 102 warning notices and closed five cafes. Hawally inspectors filed four citations and 80 warning notices and closed three cafes. Jahra inspectors filed 24 citations and 87 warning notices and closed 20 cafes and 12 wedding halls. Mubarak Al-Kabeer inspectors filed 29 citations and 20 warning notices.

In the meantime, Hawally municipality inspectors inspected various areas, said Hawally cleaning department manager Mohammed Al-Jabah, noting that the tour resulted in removing 2,500 tons of waste, cleaning 120 alleys and 100 main streets, filing seven citations, removing 28 abandoned vehicles and pasting 45 warning stickers on others.

Commercial fraud
Separately, MoH assistant undersecretary for food and drug control Dr Abdullah Al-Bader announced a cosmetic cream and injection importing company in Hawally had been refilling its products into non-authentic packages and selling them to various clinics and pharmacies, which a violation of law number 28/1006. Bader added MoH inspectors also found some unregistered products in the company's warehouses, including buttock injections, Chinese cortisone and other products.

Bader explained that in collaboration with Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) inspectors, MoH teams had been investigating the sources of some unregistered products found in some clinics, namely cosmetics, and traced them back to the company's warehouses, where large quantities of empty packs and locally printed labels were found. "Further procedures are in progress to refer the case to prosecution," Bader concluded.

Quarantine fishermen
Kuwaiti Fishermen's Union yesterday issued a statement urging various concerned bodies to reconsider the problem of impounding some Kuwaiti fishing boats at Doha port, after the coastguards referred over 23 of them for a 14-day quarantine with the justification that these boats had purchased Iranian pomfret from Iranian boats. The union called for investigating the matter to identify the culprits and hold them accountable instead of questioning everybody without evidence. "The 116 quarantined fishermen are all Indians," the union underlined, pointing out that impounding these boats will have a negative impact on the daily catch and the amount of fish offered for sale in local markets.

Passenger traffic
The civil aviation directorate said passenger traffic at Kuwait international airport increased by 4 percent in February, with a total of 1,146,665 passengers compared to 1,105,525 passengers in Feb 2019. In this regard, deputy director for aviation safety and airport security Emad Al-Jlowi said the total number of passengers arriving in February was 572,564, compared to 542,656 in the same period the previous year. Jlowi added the total number of departing passengers in the same period was 574,101, compared to 562,869 in 2019. Jlowi said the total number of flights were 10,162, compared to 9083 in 2019.

Special needs
Director of the public authority for the disabled Dr Shafiqa Al-Awadhi stressed the authority is very keen on providing proper care to citizens with special needs. Responding to a social media video showing a disabled female citizen and her bedoon husband living in a camp, Awadhi explained that this particular citizen receives KD 700 in monthly aid and that she had met with the husband and asked him to apply to get additional aid to pay for a driver and housemaid.

"The husband said he will soon move to a new residence with a KD 200 in monthly rent," Awadhi explained, adding that special teams had also contacted the citizen to follow up her case daily. Meanwhile, the ministry of social affairs stressed various charities are being currently contacted to help the citizen move into a proper residence.