Kuwait panel rejects $3,300 driving licence fee for expats

A Kuwait parliamentary committee on Sunday rejected a series of anti-expat proposals including calls for foreign workers to pay $3,300 for driving licences.

Kuwait Times reports that the interior and defence committee rejected proposals ranging from raising the driving licence fee to stopping the issuance of dependence visas, doubling the cost of foreign recruitment and setting a 10-year limit for workers to stay in the country.

MP Safa Al-Hashem, who also saw her proposal for a 5 per cent remittance tax rejected by the legal and legislative committee in January, had backed or submitted many of the recommendations.

Read: Kuwait parliament committee rejects proposed remittance tax

Sunday’s rejections came because the proposed driving licence issuance fee and $1,657 annual renewal fee would overburden expats on low salaries and the 10-year work limit would create a potential skills shortage, the panel said.

Al-Hashem dismissed the committee’s rejection of the driving licence proposal as illogical on Twitter, citing cases where lower paid workers like plumbers and carpenters owned multiple cars.

Read: Kuwait MP proposes $3,300 fee for expat driving licences

Al-Hashem dismissed the committee’s rejection of the driving licence proposal as illogical on Twitter, citing cases where lower paid workers like plumbers and carpenters owned multiple cars.

رفض اللجنة للإقتراح المقدم منّي غير منطقى وغير مقبول إن كان مبنياً على دخل شهرى للشخص!!
لأننا نشهد يوميا الكثير من الوظائف الغير مقرونة براتب (نجار،سباك، حداد) ويمتلك أكثر من سيارة وتسبب بزحام مرورى غير عادى
مستمرة ولن أتوقف عن تقديم الحلول لتعديل تركيبة سكانية ملخبطة وزحام مرورى https://t.co/MAsXHdge3k

— safa Alhashem (@safaalhashem) February 11, 2018

The committee did approve a proposal for the government to force contractors on projects to ensure the departure of labourers after the project is completed.

Lawmakers in Kuwait have submitted a number of anti-expat proposals in recent years citing concerns that the country’s 4.4 million population is imbalanced.

They want the percentage of foreigners in the country to be reduced from an estimated 70 per cent of the population at present to closer to 50 per cent.

Al-Hashem pledged to continue presenting solutions to address the country’s traffic and demographic issues.