Proposal at parliament to discuss traffic jams

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Education's Undersecretary Dr Haitham Al-Athari stressed that terminating expatriate teachers from public schools was being done for the greater good and only includes teachers of certain subjects who can be substituted with Kuwaitis already available and awaiting recruitment. Athari added that expatriate teachers who are the children of Kuwaiti mothers and husbands of Kuwaiti women would be exempted from the decision. He also noted that teachers who have children studying in grade 11 would be exempted for one more year until their children finish high school. In addition, responding to pleas made to change specialties to sub-majors so that the teachers could teach other subjects, Athari stressed that the ministry is only committed to the main specialty.

Aptitude tests

MP Khalil Abul rejected Kuwait University's decision to restrict access to aptitude tests to grade 12 students only, with the excuse of a lack of budget. Abul urged Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education Dr Mohammad Al-Faris to intervene and undo the decision.

Traffic congestions

MP Osama Al-Shaheen said along with MPs Mohammed Al-Dallal, Jamaan Al-Harbash, Abdullah Fahhad and Abdulwahab Al-Babtain, he filed a proposal to be discussed on March 7 session concerning traffic congestions. Shaheen added that the proposal urged the public facilities' committee to discuss the issue and come up with both short and long term solutions and to report with recommendations that will be discussed in May. Speaking at a press conference held at the parliament, Shaheen said that Kuwait is ranked fourth worldwide in the number of vehicles per kilometer. "Kuwait is experiencing a real dilemma, and over 85 percent of the road capacity is already used up," he underlined, pointing out that Kuwait's roads capacity is only for 600,000 vehicles, while the actual number is currently 1.6 million.

Priorities

Head of the parliament's priorities committee MP Thamer Al-Sowait said the committee prioritized amending the citizenship and election laws to be discussed on March 7. Sowait added that the committee met three government bodies to discuss the delay in issuing executive charters of five laws.

Internal auditors

The Cabinet's Secretary General Abdullatif Al-Roudhan said reports made by internal auditors at various ministries and government establishments for the fiscal year 2015-2016 showed that prior monitoring had been followed in 51 out of 65 government bodies. Roudhan explained that internal auditors made 451,395 transactions during the same year. He also said that the auditors' body chairman made some recommendations to limit financial violations and mandate government bodies to get Central Tenders Committee, State Audit Bureau, consultant houses committee or any other relevant bodies' prior approval before signing, extending or renewing any contracts.

By A Saleh