The Human Resources Committee of the National Assembly discussed with the banks on the proposed law on the National Employment in Non-Governmental Organizations based on a bill submitted by MP Khalil Al-Saleh.

The proposed bill requires the private sector to employ expatriates only in certain exceptional basis in the absence of qualified personnel or their reluctance to work in the vacant position as per the terms and conditions of the job application.

The proposal consists of 10 articles, Article 3 of which allows the Council of Ministers to issue decisions concerning specific jobs, activities, occupations, or areas where citizens and others can be employed.

Article 4 obliges the government agencies, when concluding contracts with non-governmental entities for the implementation of the contract with the mentioned functional names and expertise required.

The proposal calls for priority in the appointment of citizens, except in accordance with specific cases, provided that the same contracts provide for fines for violating the terms of the contract.

Article 5 requires non-governmental organizations to work on the rehabilitation of national labor, and attract them according to the conditions specified in the executive regulation of this law and taking into account the provisions of Law No. 6 for the year 2010.

Under article 6, in the case of the transfer of ownership or administration of a government agency to a non-governmental entity the Kuwaiti employees will be employed under the same conditions, wages and benefits which they enjoyed prior to the transfer, until such time as the executive regulations of this law are issued.

Article 7 for its part stipulates that the national manpower working for any non-governmental entity must be notified at least three months prior to any changes in the activity of the said

authority or its systems or mechanisms of operation if such change would affect the national manpower.

Article 8, in turn, decides to grant a Kuwaiti who works in a non-governmental entity a financial compensation of at least two years’ wages if he was arbitrarily dismissed or terminated indefinitely without his consent or because of his trade union activity or claims of his legal rights to discrimination on grounds of sex, origin or religion.

Article 9 is entrusted to the staff of the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program and the State apparatus in accordance with a ministerial decision to exercise the powers of judicial control to monitor the implementation of this law.

In the area of sanctions, Article 10 stipulates penalties for non-governmental organizations that violate this law.

According to the explanatory memorandum that was submitted to the banks, this proposal aims to oblige the nongovernmental entities to implement the state’s stated policy of replacing the expatriate labor with Kuwaiti labor in order to achieve the goals such as providing wider employment opportunities for qualified Kuwaiti cadres, which suffer from unemployment, and wait for their turn in for government jobs for years, especially the university students and holders of secondary school certificates, re balancing the dysfunctional population structure.