Kuwait MP: ‘Expats must pay even for air they breathe'

Kuwaiti MP Safaa Al-Hashim has called for the imposition of fees for any service that expatriates benefit from, saying that there should pay “even for the air they breathe.”

Al-Hashim demanded the implementation of her proposal to impose fees on expatriates for using roads “because it is time to apply it” while reiterating the need to collect fees on remittances. “We have to take a fee even on the air that the expatriate breathes,” She added.

The Kuwaiti MP warned the Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, Saad Al-Kharraz, that an accountability hearing would be awaiting him if the Union of Consumer Co-operative Societies continues to bring in the Arab labour force, declaring that “what is happening is an out of the ordinary invasion.”

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For his part, MP Abdulwahab Al-Babtain believed that “the number of expatriates should be reduced to half of the population of Kuwait.”

Expatriates represent about 70 per cent of the total population of Kuwait as of the end of June 2018, i.e. a population of 4.7 million individuals, according to statistics issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI).

It is worth mentioning that Al-Hashim has a long history of attacking migrant workers in Kuwait, as she has repeatedly demanded the deportation of Egyptian workers because they are a burden on the Kuwaiti economy.