the government administrative apparatus suffers because of an overload of 61 undersecretaries and 266 assistant undersecretaries, mostly of whom work in various departments of the council of ministers.
the management experts believe that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the efficiency of the administrative apparatus in the state is the large number of undersecretaries, because the state has to create jobs for them, thus putting a burden on the administrative system since a large proportion of them are p r o m o t e d according to quota system to satisfy the deputies and influential people, although it is a well known fact that half of the number of these undersecretaries is sufficient to manage government work, and inevitably more efficiently.
on the other hand, various newspapers have reported the inability of the ministry of social affairs and labor to stop abuses and violations of some charities. in spite of the efforts of the former minister to combat corruption in the ministry and had submitted a report to the council of ministers on the branches of the violating societies only 30% were closed.
the minister stumbled because of the cabinet’s inability to make a radical decision in this regard due to the pressures of the religious parties and the lack of response from the municipality to take punitive measures on these societies who had violated the laws and collected huge sums of money, most of them belonging to religious parties.
add to this the inability of the ministry of social affairs to know what these associations deduct from the donations in the form of expenses which are sometimes complex in kuwait, and second the country cooperates with these societies to carry out their projects.
a kuwaiti woman is said to have donated a huge sum to a local charity to help set up an islamic center in france. the charity deducted 12% from the donated amount and the rest was sent to its representative in france to deduct a percentage thereof.
france refused to establish the center and it was necessary to return the amount to the donor, the association was involved in a critical situation, and the matter developed with the resignation of one of its members, reflecting a form of repeated corruption behind the scenes, and i think the ministry of social affairs is incapable of addressing such fraud.
the press also referred to another incident involving a salafi association, which transferred 4 million euros to build an islamic center in belgium and the license was withdrawn because of the manipulations.
it turned out that the property was registered in the name of three kuwaiti members of the association and because its cooperation with another charity classified under the terrorism list, the belgian government seized all the assets. the donors’ money was the victim of abuse and continued mismanagement.
a third scandal is related to the sacrifices of the eid project, which a charity failed to implement under the eyes of the ministry of social affairs which has done nothing until today without informing donors who thought they had performed an important religious duty of eid aladha.
there are of course, dozens of other stories yet the ministry stands helpless but does not hesitate to hold accountable charities which remain committed to their task but are punished for very simple violations.
as part of our care to donors’ funds and the transparency of our work, the bylaws of the kuwait friendship society have included clear provisions that prohibit employees, supervisors or board of directors of the society from profiting under any pretext or text in order to preserve the reputation of all, the projects and its board of directors.
we hope that the ministry of social affairs would apply the same to all charities. if this happens, half of them will stop working for known reasons.