Kuwait’s cabinet has instructed all state bodies to limit spending to at least 10 per cent as part of plans to address the country’s budget deficit, ministers agreed on Tuesday.
The measures also call to limit spending on local and internationally-held functions and exhibitions, travel expenses pertaining to overseas training, foreign missions and medical treatment for nationals alongside a steps to ensure due debts to the state are collected.
The move also includes the revision of incentives granted to leading officials employed at state bodies and rent prices for state-owned real estate and land, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sheikh Hamad Jabel Al-Ali Al-Sabah said after ministers held their weekly cabinet session.
Additionally, the Public Authority for Manpower was instructed to assess whether to halt providing financial incentives to privately-employed nationals, whose wages exceed KD 3,000.
Furthermore, the ministers discussed a Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) report and a briefing by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development, which both highlighted steps to ensure improving the country’s sovereign credit rating over the next four years.
Both the minister of finance and state minister for economic affairs were instructed to form a sovereign credit rating governance committee, tasked with strengthening communication and the standardization of data with all rating agencies and state bodies in order to achieve this goal.
The committee, led by the Ministry of Finance, will include the membership of CBK, the Kuwait Investment Authority and the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development.
Separately, the cabinet were briefed, by Minister of Health Sheikh Dr. Bassel Humoud Al-Sabah, on the country’s health situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minister noted a continuing decline in coronavirus-related deaths, infections and hospitalialisations, adding that the recovery rate has increased to 97.7 per cent.
He highlighted ministry efforts to speed up vaccination against the virus to reach social immunity.
On this, the cabinet said it appreciates the cooperation of nationals and expatriates in implementing health requirements, urging the public’s continued adherence to COVID-19 measures.
Source: Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)