Employment on radio, TV curtailed due to cost-cutting

The Kuwaiti Information Ministry has banned hiring employees on radio and TV programmes as an austerity step, according to Al Jarida newspaper reports.

“This step comes to rationalise “unjustified spending” on a number of programmes that have been accustomed to hiring over the years employees mainly for technical jobs, Al Jarida quoted well-informed sources as saying.

In recent months, Kuwait has unveiled plans to replace citizens with migrant workers amid calls for minimising expatriates to redress demographic imbalance in the country.

The ban on employing people from outside the ministry will take effect as of early next year. The Information Ministry has found it is necessary to take serious and effective moves to limit waste of public money at the beginning of the New Year after the end of the current round of programmes.

“There are several departments inside the Ministry that are full of cadres who can take charges of such programmes if the need arises,” the source added.