Kuwait Sentenced 30 females to one year jail and 5000 are suspected

May 18, 20162 Comments

Kuwait launched an investigation into a suspected scam involving 5,324 families accused of faking documents to obtain government social security payments, a minister said on Tuesday.

Social affairs and labour minister Hind Al Sabeeh said that millions of dollars in public funds were illegally taken by about 52,000 families on the basis of false claims in a country with 1.3 million native citizens. The minister said payments were made to 1,479 Kuwaiti women who claimed to be single, but were later found to be married. There were another 1,283 cases of Kuwaiti women claiming they were married to stateless people, but were found to be married to Kuwaiti citizens, she said. Kuwait spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on social aid to low-income families, but introduced austerity measures since the sharp decline in the price of oil.

The minister said legal measures would be taken against the families suspected of making false claims and any ministry employees who facilitated the scam. Meanwhile, Kuwait’s lower court on Tuesday sentenced 30 female nationals to one year in jail for illegally taking wages from a government programme that aimed to encourage citizens to take private sector jobs.

The court said the women took salaries from the national labour support programme for two years after registering as employees at a private firm but without actually working. It handed the employer a one-year sentence and ordered the women to return the money they took from the programme, in addition to fining them $3,300 each. The sentence was not final and could be challenged.

About 80 per cent of Kuwait’s national workforce of 360,000 is employed by the government. Under the national labour support programme, the government pays a monthly salary to all Kuwaitis who take up jobs in the private sector.

Source : The National

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  1. Anju John says:

    Finally some action against the real robbers of Kuwait economy. Take a vote from expats to discover more ways.

  2. this is just a start there a lot more Governament can do to save the Nation

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