the board members of the kuwait chamber of commerce and industry are not satanic and the chamber is not controlled by a group of vampires, as some sick minded people like to describe it.
the chamber is not an alien or a new institution. its members are brothers, they have families, they are sons of a family, fathers and have sisters working for the state, and retirees. they are affiliated to the rest of society, and whatever spectrum they belong to, their prosperity and happiness is part of the prosperity of the rest and their presence inevitably does not constitute any threat to any party. since kuwait’s inception, they have been the backbone of the state’s economy and there is no modern and normal society, which cannot live without the business class.
a merchant, like any other person, seeks to achieve maximum profit, and the employee seeks to obtain the highest salary, all within clear rules and laws. if the state’s plots are given to the merchant at a low rental value, for example, then this is not his fault, and it is absurd to expect or ask the government to rein in the merchant.
the same applies to employees of the ministry of oil, for example, whose salaries were raised to fabulous levels, compared to others, and no one expected them to take the initiative and demand the government to reduce their salaries to be equal with those below them, thus, what is the difference between an employee who accepts a salary from the government while he knows well that it is very high and a merchant who accepts a rent while he knows that it is low?
those who attacked the chamber’s statement did not realize, and they had their reasons, that it is in the interest of the merchant or the industrialist to raise the standard of living of community members, and not the other way around, as some have portrayed because this has a direct positive impact on his trade.
on the other hand, it is in the interest of the chamber’s merchants and industrialists to encourage the state’s generosity with citizens, and employees obtaining the highest salaries, bonuses, and discounts on basic commodities, but they know the danger of this on the state economy.
from this point of view and out of a sense of responsibility, the chamber, represented by all its members, issued a statement denouncing the weakness of the public administration and the complete official and popular bias towards exaggerating its services to the citizen, at the expense of future needs without carrying out a real and long-awaited economic reform.
in its statement, the chamber also called for the reform of basic structural imbalances, addressing the demographics, limiting the dominance of the public sector, preventing monopoly, the need to impose an income tax without prejudice to the pocket of those of limited income, re-pricing public services, raising the rental value of state property, restructuring subsidies, rationalizing them and directing them to those who deserve it, so one may wonder: where is the crime of the chamber here? what is so illogical and unfair about these claims is that some people describe the chamber members as vampires?
what is wrong in its criticism of the inflation of public consumer spending is the continuing and increasing public budget deficit, the deterioration of public services and infrastructure, the decline in the level of education, the government’s failure to address corruption, and the warning against reducing the state’s sovereign credit rating?
is not all of this sufficient to make the ‘nation in real danger’ real? the focus of some on the decrease in the rental value of state’s industrial and service plots, and the need to raise it is evidence that they do not understand the mechanism of commercial work because every rent increase will be paid for by the consumer, knowing there is no sane merchant who opposes the government raising the rents of state property if this is done within an integrated economic plan.
trade is profit, loss, suffering, fatigue, effort, and risk. in the corona crisis, thousands of merchants and industrialists lost their jobs, their savings, and all of their future. did anyone have mercy on them?
finally: the well-being of the citizen and the resident depends on the strength of the state’s economy, and not paying attention to this aspect under the pretext that the ultimate benefactor will be the merchant is dangerous shortsightedness for which we all will pay.