The plan, announced by the minister last month, stipulates to reduce the number of expatriates by 100,000 every year for the next 10 years with the final target to cut one million expatriates from the current number of 2.6 million.
“This does not mean random deportation but regulating and organizing expatriate manpower. Kuwait doors will remain open for experts, advisors, consultants and highly-skilled people. Deportation is only intended for ‘marginal laborers’ who have no work, the minister said at a local function.
Rasheedi had never spelt out the measures that would be taken to achieve the goals but she had already ordered some constraints on the recruitment of expatriate labor and on the transfer of visas into work permits.
But reports have linked between actions by the traffic department of deporting expatriates for serious traffic offenses and Rasheedi’s statements.
Two weeks ago, the National Assembly approved amendments to the labor law that allows for the establishment of a public authority for manpower which will be entrusted in the recruitment of workers from abroad.
In another development, the appeals court yesterday ordered in the first ruling of its kind the prime minister to compensate former MP Mohammad Hayef for damages he sustained from dissolving the 2012 National Assembly, the ex-MP lawyer Adel Abdulhadi said.
The constitutional court last year ordered the dissolution of the opposition-dominated assembly on the grounds of procedural mistakes regarding the Amiri decree that called for fresh general election in February.
The invitation to fresh election came after His Highness the Amir dissolved the 2009 assembly in December 2011. The issuance of the Amiri decree triggered off a constitutional controversy in whether the decree violated the constitution or not.
About four months after the February 2012 election, which were swept by the opposition, the constitutional court declared the polls as illegal and ordered the new assembly dissolved.
Abdulhadi said that he will file another lawsuit to demand a compensation of KD1 million from the prime minister.
It was not known whether the ruling, which is final and cannot be challenged, will open the way for other ex-MPs to file similar lawsuits.
The national assembly interior and defense committee yesterday discussed with Defense Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Khaled Al-Sabah a new draft law for military conscription more than 10 years after the old law was scrapped in 2001.
The minister and his team explained the goals and objectives of the proposed legislation and called on the lawmakers to speed up the approval procedure but MPs said they need time to review the bill which was first submitted by the government in 2009.
The legal and legislative committee also approved amendments to the Audit Bureau law to allow the accounting watchdog to refer cases involving suspected corruption directly to the public prosecution for investigation. At present, the bureau reports to the National Assembly which refers such cases to the public prosecution.
