Parliament committee to discuss expats residency proposal today

The parliamentary legislative committee’s meeting will discuss today the proposals concerning amending laws on expatriates’ residency in Kuwait, local daily Kuwait Times reported. The proposals include limiting the residency to five years only, limiting expats’ ratio in the population, imposing these ratios retroactively or granting expats more privileges.

One of the four proposals, made by MP Abdullah Al-Tamimi, suggests limiting the residency of expats working in menial jobs to non-renewable five years. He also suggests that the total number of any given expat community should not exceed 10 percent of the total population. Tamimi excluded GCC nationals, Europeans and Americans, advisors, doctors, people with rare specialties and those with higher degrees from accredited universities from the proposal.

Tamimi also suggested imposing the new amendment retroactively and, thus, cancelling the residency of those who had been in Kuwait for five years three months after the law is put into practice.

In another proposal submitted by MP Nabil Al-Fadhl suggested granting more privileges to expats, such as waiving the order that renders an expat’s residency annulled should he or she remain abroad for over six months – provided that the residency is still valid. He also suggested granting renewable residency to expats who have children residing in Kuwait with valid residency visas and to those with a parent holding valid residency in the country.

Another proposal suggests granting expats a five year residency visas provided their passports remain valid. It also calls for cancelling visas unless expats apply for renewal a month before expiry.