Development Should Focus On Quality, Ease Of Life For Citizens
by Amer Al-Hilal
Reprinted from ‘Arab Times’ (Jan. 6th 2011)

KUWAIT needs a development plan for citizens, one that takes into consideration the quality and ease of life for citizens – one that ties in overall human resources to skills, culture and education, augmented by the latest technologies and processes. We certainly don’t need a KD37 billion development plan shrouded in secrecy, with details constantly modified, convoluted by political trials and tribulations and government brokered ‘deals’ to augment political power, because let me tell you, if the development plan consists mainly of the Jahra Highway, Bubyan Port Phase 2, several new housing areas built in the traditional manner, the Arab-built Jaber Hospital and the Oil sector (i.e. The Fourth Refinery) then citizens are being deluded.

The above projects for example should not be under any ‘development plan’ – those types of projects, hospitals for example, are a given and should be planned and implemented for the growing population anyway. As it stands now, it’s a development plan by schmucks for schmucks.

I am not even going to bring up Silk City because I think it’s a dream wrapped up in a mirage that will take over a quarter of a century at the very least to analyze, plan, and execute. Judging by past Kuwaiti methodology it will not be built to international
specifications, and even if it is, it will undergo bureaucratic hurdles and be outdated by the time it’s built, not to mention ill maintained. This isn’t ‘Abu Dhabi 2030 Vision’ we’re talking about here, folks, so don’t get excited.

But I digress. Citizens urgently need the realities on the ground to change. So far they are not seeing anything materialize; on the contrary, services and infrastructure are regressing in all ways, whether it’s traffic, food safety, bureaucracy, state of the environment, ease of business, and so forth.

Just driving through an infested, traffic-ridden Ring Road – planned and built for a city a quarter of our population – is an indication that the state is still mired in studies, plans and empty rhetoric concerning metro plans, highways, bridges, flyovers, and road extensions, plans that should supposedly make our life easier. But probably won’t. Every year we take to the streets and the situation is grimmer.

Allow me to indulge in a few civic fantasies: Citizens want to travel through decent, well constructed roads and stroll on quality pavements, use clean transportation modes and breath fresh, clean air – it is high time development plans included strict environmental and litter laws (with soaring fines and imprisonment for lawbreakers) and also embraced alternative energies such as solar power, wind turbines, recycling plants and Waste management facilities (Kuwait currently invests less on waste management than its Gulf counterparts).

Obesity and diabetes are serious health issues in Kuwait, and are among the highest rates in the world. The state should invest in ‘green’ pathways, parks, community centers or walk areas for citizens to exercise and socialize (in the long run it will save millions in health care costs).

Additionally, what is the first image that greets a visitor upon entering Kuwait? The airport should represent modernity, efficiency, ease and comfort of travel, a pristine glimpse symbolizing a city of the new millennium; in actuality, however, Kuwait Airport is an unpleasant experience: crowded, smoky, dimly-lit, appalling parking and lackluster facilities, a truly Third World cesspool compared to other Gulf airports – citizens deserve much better. There are plans to build a new Terminal and new airports but those will take years at best due to the regular Kuwaiti methodology of management.

The state does not seem the least bit concerned in the aesthetic component of Kuwait; appalling zoning everywhere, vacant plots of land scattered around, undeveloped, neighborhoods encircled by desert land, unpaved and devoid of vegetation, bus stops so rundown they look like they were caught in a Fallujah firefight, roads with potholes and speed bumps that can gravely damage your car, diminutive, plastic garbage containers that encourage you to litter – the list is endless.

The city needs to be beautified, by competent landscaping, in a Kuwait lined with millions of trees and flora, a ‘green’ alternative: pumping oxygen into the atmosphere to dispel the Co2 and pollutants emanating from Kuwait’s ancient, ill-managed power stations and factories (which also need to be torn down and rebuilt – some date to the 1950s).

Citizens demand 21st century tools, a polished, competent, up to date infrastructure that caters to their needs, high-speed broadband internet (whose speed is not limited by feeble MoC phone lines), they require an efficient monitoring system of goods and services, including food testing labs, electronic government so citizens can finalize paperwork online, whether car registrations, license renewals and the like – as other Gulf states do (Currently, if you want to survive Kuwait’s Kafkaesque bureaucracy you need an army of ‘mandoobs’).

Unsurprisingly, many new areas such as Mubarak Al Kabeer, for example, lack basic telephone services, its citizens resorting to mobile phone lines and mobile data plans for Internet. Ask those citizens about development and they’ll respond with four letter words of encouragement at the government – a government that constantly claims to ‘safeguard the dignity of its citizens.’

What is the status concerning fiber optics plan by the Ministry of Communications encompassing all of Kuwait? The fact that copper lines are still being installed in some areas instead of fiber optics is indicative the MoC failed to execute its fiber optics infrastructure plans on time. Additionally, Bahrain, Oman and UAE are getting their own new flag cable – why didn’t Kuwait? I wonder what our friends at the Ministry of Communications have to say about this – probably an instant replay, clueless message about “MoC’s desire to live up to sublime vision of HH The Amir for Kuwait to be a financial hub.”

Citizens and businesses demand a more competent Customs Department, one armed with the latest technologies, with workers who toil in conscience – as opposed to dozens of ‘professionals’ drinking tea with one person doing his job -while others demand more bureaucratic paperwork from half a dozen ministries to clear customs. Entrepreneurs, companies and citizens in general know what used to take days to clear can sometimes take up to a week or more now (if you throw in a weekend) and people end up paying the late fees because of their inefficiency.

Now as much as I desire some of the above wish-list upgrades to occur, the cynical side is aware no matter what plans are weaved, whether it’s a new airport, terminal, metro, building a resort island in Failaka, it’s the same old song: bring in an international consultant, have them devise a blueprint and strategy, forward it to an inefficient ministry – with the bulk of employees, at best, armed with high school degrees and with technical and administrative competencies of a soiled shag carpet – have them modify and ‘supervise’ the plan, kill the plan, bring in a local contractor – whose tentacles extend into the Central Tenders Committee, therefore getting the winning bid – who eventually cuts corners with cheap materials, modifications and makes the bulk of their profits from tender ‘variations’ and presto, it’s Kuwait development served at its best!

We can only judge development by what we see and feel; by the way our lives are enhanced. For example, if we renew our registrations online next year, form a business in record time, attain swifter broadband, or drive on less congested roads, we’ll know we’re on the right track.

I am not holding my breath, however.

The good news is the tentative ban has been denied by the authorities as well as the local newspaper that ran the original story (which they retracted). Nevertheless, I do believe there was an ‘intention‘ somewhere along the line to enforce this and they may have backed down when the local and international outcry (The Guardian, LA Times, Endgadget etc) took hold.

When will The Ministry of Public Works realize it’s not the amount of contracts signed nor the amounts involved, it’s how projects are designed and executed.

Update 28/4/10 : We have received the following message from Ms. Nadia, a close friend of the victim.

“Hilaliya thank you so much for posting this!

I just want to point out a few things that the newspapers didnt mention:

Dana is 22 years old NOT 20.
Her mom passed away from a STROKE (not heart attack) due to the stress of her daughter being treated this way.
Dana was on Jawazat round about when this traffic officer in a pick up truck with tinted windows cut her off and made her slam on her brakes. He got out and WAS wearing the police uniform, however he was off duty (and NOT in a police car). He took her license and told her to follow him to the RUMATHIYA police station EVEN though they were right infront of the SALMIYA police station. On the way he was speeding and not even indicating. When she arrived to the police station she waited in her car while he went inside. Soon he came back with a man in a dishdasha and told her to go inside. She said no as she was the only girl alone and there were men inside, and she wanted her parents to arrive first.(Dana was speaking in English as her Arabic is poor). The disgusting officer started screaming at her at the top of his lungs saying that he’d KILL HER, put her face under his shoe and squash it, and punch her face that her glasses will go in her eyes and start bleeding to death! The story gets even worse, however its best told by DANA herself.
Dana and her family are respectful people that obey the laws of KUWAIT as well as the religion. They are good people, and they DO NOT deserve this. Her friends and family will not rest until JUSTICE IS SERVED.

Dana and her father have been interview by AL WATAN TV, and the show will be aired onTHURSDAY 29TH APRIL @ 10pm. (‘The Khaled Adul Jaleel Show’).

May her mother REST IN PEACE.

Her best friend Nadia“.

Updates And Links:

‘Safi’s Retreat’ Blog

‘Al-Watan Daily’ (English)

‘ilSul6ana’s’ Blog

‘Some Contrast’s Blog

‘The Avenues’ Blog

Excuse us for interrupting you and your ministry’s hard work, obviously busy busting foreign National Day celebrations in stadiums, expelling Al-Baradei supporters and pontificating about Dual Nationality ‘measures.’

I am not going to touch on Taxi drivers (working for companies owned by Interior Ministry personnel) selling female passengers into slavery and prostitution.

I am not going to touch on Human Traffickers: certain Merchants and Companies, MPs, Municipality Members, Sheiks and others being untouchable.

I am not going to touch on certain ‘Security Apparatus’ members, bribed by dangerous foreign elements attempting to infiltrate Kuwait.

I am not going to touch on your ministry’s plans to alleviate traffic, reduce congestion and car accidents.

I am not going to touch on the increasing crime rate in Kuwait.

I am sure you and your ‘team’ tirelessly work night and day to formulate solutions to the above issues. However, I do have but one simple question.

What are you going to do about this?

This post is fat too long which is why I never published it. Please try and read it … pretty please …all 6 of you who still visit this site.

Your first day in medical school: three subjects for one year: biology, physics and chemistry, mostly rodents, reptiles and Schiff bases…stuff I can’t remember anymore, nor will I ever need.

Your second and third year in medical school: You’re finally seeing a human body for the first time, you see the parts (anatomy), the mechanisms (physiology) and the witchcraft (biochemistry).

Your fourth and fifth year: You analyze diseases, study about pathology and microbiology but barely see twenty patients a year; half the time you don’t know what they are doing or what you’re doing to them just taking a general patient history (interview) and physical exam (forget the diagnosis, that’s miles off).

The final year: you read, read, read and read – realising that you’ve barely seen enough to know what or how to recognise what you’re reading if a patient even suffered from it.

Graduation Day: You’re happy! YOU ARE DONE! But what now? Where do you go from here? You’ve passed, you know your stuff but don’t know what’s next ; The reasons why you went to medical school are forgotten and you’re not all that inspired, you want to treat people but don’t even know how to prescribe yet.

That’s a summary of my medical “education” and as most of you can tell, I’m not exactly satisfied by it. Now, I’m not an educator, I’m no teacher. They need to inspire, to possess that ability to make you trust them enough to guide you; they have to have that gift that lets them build a mental structure in which information can be stored and eventually made useful. Sadly, few of my superiors did – and looking around at the new batch of interns from both Kuwait and abroad – few seem inspired. Don’t get me wrong, they work hard, right to the bone, they have skills but not the useful ones.

How many of the young doctors you see or meet actually make you feel comfortable, know how to ask the right question at the right time, know how to relay to someone they have a grave disease such as cancer or that a loved one died minutes ago?

How many of the doctors reading this (if any.. ) actually feel a sense of awe at what they do? How many of us actually enjoy reading about how IV fluids (drip…or ‘drib‘ as they say in Kuwaiti slang) were originally made, how the inhalers (‘Ventolin’) we use evoloved, why we tend to wear green, blue or green scrubs rather then white or grey ones? Or who the first open heart surgeon and how did he achieve that milestone? How many of us were taught the ethics behind palliative care? Contraception? Experimental treatments? Or how clinical trials evolved and the difference between them and standard treatments?

Medical history isn’t the reason why you went to medical school, it isn’t how you save lives, but in that third year when all you know is the Krebs cycle (the gearbox of your metabolism) and the anatomy of the Brachial plexus (nerves in your arms) you need to feel inspired by people who’ve done it before you. You need to find a reason to read, to debate, to analyse and to understand and during that final year, you need to learn why trying out new treatments for MS and charging people for it is unethical and why the current manager (‘mudeer‘) is a douchebag and why patients blame you for cancer rather than try to understand it…

You don’t learn these things in textbooks on surgery, rheumatology or internal medicine, and contrary to popular belief, you won’t learn them by parading the hallways in your new white coat and seeing fifty patients in the E.R.; you learn them by reading about ethics, sociology and other humanities that underpin our profession.

Kuwait University and others like it have the ability to reshape education and inspire us. The reason why they can is – because unlike other institutions – they were built from the ground up to educate us; other institutions need to attract research grants to survive,we don’t.

We also have experienced faculty, there are people currently teaching who were there when stomach stapling came to Kuwait and can tell us how they tackled it, how they dealt with errors made during those first cases. We have people who saw Viagra become the drug du jour and who saw the eradication and rebirth of tuberculosis in Kuwait.

We need to reshape our education and have graduates who can debate, discuss and be knowledgeable in our field without feeling the need to read about ethics once a day. Maybe then we’ll stop hearing about how doctors who “don’t know my name“, “don’t spend enough time with me” or are “too brash” or “shayif nafsa” (arrogant) – maybe then doctors won’t get slapped around too much.

I’ll leave you with the following quote relayed to me one afternoon years ago, inspiring a sense of awe. John Cardinal Newman describes a university as a citadel built with the purpose of:

‘Raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principals to popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political powers, and refining the intercourse of private life.’

I only hope that one day the spirit of the above quote materializes at the local university, one whose faculty and students should really expect much more from each other.

Today I was so pleasantly surprised to discover a hidden treasure for kids with mechanical and robotic interests (If any of the kids you know like Lego, they are guaranteed to love this place). I originally heard about it from an acquaintance and must say I was impressed. The place is like a Robotic Centre created by MILSET (A French acronym for ‘International Movement for Leisure Activities in Science and Technology’). After hard work, the Ministry of Education backed up the idea and provided a venue: a humble renovated building in Rawda near a gas station.

Kids there are really encouraged to think which in this part of the world is rare. They are presented with problems given by the main centre to all MILSET global branches and try to offer solutions to that problem in regards to their environment (e.g. traffic). I saw wonderful solutions presented by even twelve year olds. In addition, they learn how to install programs from a computer into actual mini robots. Additionally, each student is given his own robot which is locked safely in a tool box when the student leaves (this is all provided free of charge). All you need to offer is a picture of the member. Unfortunately since it is a fairly new club, memberships for the moment are restricted to Kuwaitis boys only (they don’t have female employees yet, hence the ‘boys only’ aspect).

There are competitions held there as well; presently the ‘Fourth Annual School Robot Competition’ is being held where the finalist goes to Jordan for the semi-finals and the winners go to the United States for the finals. More than three thousand students attend that from all over the world.

If you are interested here is their link: www.milsetasia.org

Check out the video above (taken in 2008 by RTL); It features a European Parliament member whose monthly salary is 14,000 Euros (KD 5,580) sign in for work then dash out with their luggage.
Even moralistic Green Party MEP Hiltrud Breyer, one of the founding members of its party signs in, dashes, out banging her head on the elevator entrance. Maybe she was going to save a beached whale somewhere or harass a super tanker with an inflatable dinghy.
I always thought not coming to work, or signing in and dashing out was a Kuwaiti tradition perfected by Kuwaiti Government employees. Whenever you venture to a Kuwait Government establishment, you rarely see any Kuwaitis, only the Indian tea boy, the Bangladeshi cleaning boy, and the Egyptian clerk.
It seems even Europeans are not immune to laziness and cheating on the job.

(Still from Al-Arabiya)

Kuwait has one of the highest accident rates in the world, and it is only getting worse.

The recent tragic accident on a Doha, Kuwait highway resulting in the death of five individuals with fourteen injured (the victims included onlookers and racers on the popular highway strip) only goes to show that being on the road has turned into a hazard for all citizens.

When is this country – an affluent country – going to build a racetrack a la Bahrain or Abu Dhabi so kids can go race and save themselves and us further tragedies. It is time for Kuwait to build a track, whether its government or private funded is irrelevant; young men will never change, they speed, they show off, they do stupid car tricks – at least at the race track they can race, blow of steam and improve their driving and be monitored.

From what I have been relayed, Basil Salem Al-Sabah tried for years to push for a race track but was shunned – this was followed by offers from private citizens willing to invest in a race track but the government refused them land and permission.

This is a serious safety issue and the government needs to move on this as ASAP.