CR IP TI ON BS SU
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2013
Suicide bomber targets Tunisia resort, nearby attack foiled
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NO: 15972
150 FILS
7 40 PAGES
www.kuwaittimes.net
THULHIJA 26, 1434 AH
With Today’s Issue
Not easy to set up and do business in Kuwait World Bank report ranks Kuwait low on global list conspiracy theories
152 By Badrya Darwish
badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net
I
t has been two days since the government dropped the bomb about the end of our comfortable existence and about the coming dry years. There are just nine years left for those who want to make a fortune if they can. Then came the World Bank slamming us with a more distressful analysis of doing business in Kuwait. As if the news of our government was not enough, we now have to choke on the World Bank analysis which ranked Kuwait 152nd in the ease of starting a business. Not only is starting a business so tough and rough. We also ranked 119 on enforcing contracts - not bad out of 189 countries ranked globally. I do not have to list all the categories for which we ranked below 100 because you can read most of them in detail in the story next to my column. I am proud of one thing. We ranked 11 in paying taxes. Hooray! As all of you know, as an indulged nation, we still do not have taxes in Kuwait. We have trivial taxation compared to the rest of the world but with all the economic downfalls, I think the government might be preparing for a big tax scheme soon. To sum it up, I did not need the World Bank to tell me these data. Just trying to establish a company, every entrepreneur has to run and do their paperwork following a tedious process that the World Bank numbers to be 12 procedures. I want to tell the World Bank that actually you need 112 procedures because you need to run around and get 10 stamps on one paper and another 10 on another. Sometimes this running around happens in different buildings. I never understood why they need all these stamps. I have a theory that this system was invented just to create jobs for hundreds and thousands of citizens. In reality, the whole procedure could involve two or three stamps only. Mind you, the way we get the work done involves wasting endless hours chasing employees if he or she is on their desk. Then you have to repeat the visits to the various departments numerous times. And the more you go, the more stamps are mysteriously needed. Forget it if you ask for a loan for your company. Forget it if you want a foreign partner (what is called a foreign investor). The poor man has to give me his money and I can give him a 49 percent share. That is why investors are not queuing at Kuwait Airport. With the latest analysis of the government, I think we can stop dreaming and wake up to the reality that no investors are going to knock on our doors. If this is the appalling scenario, I think that even Kuwaitis will seek to invest outside the country.
KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah meets visiting Egyptian Interim President Adly Mansour at Bayan Palace yesterday. The leaders discussed ways and means of further promoting and reinforcing distinguished fraternal relations and Kuwait’s support for security and stability in Egypt. They also considered several issues of mutual interest and the latest developments on both regional and international arenas. — KUNA
KUWAIT: The World Bank’s 2014 Doing Business Report ranked Kuwait 152 on the ease of starting a business, while the state ranked 104 on the ease of doing business. Doing Business 2014, a World Bank Group flagship report, covers 189 economies and 10 indicator sets - starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes, trading across borders, getting credit, protecting investors, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency. The report concludes that Kuwait made starting a business more difficult by increasing the minimum capital requirement. The UAE topped the Middle East region in the rankings. The World Bank said its scorecard on the ease of doing business around the world had spurred thousands of regulatory reforms in the past decade, pushing back against critics who argue the national rankings stigmatize rather than inspire. The report finds that the pace of business regulatory reform in the Middle East and North Africa has slowed amid the unrest affecting the region. Governments find it increasingly challenging to keep up with reforms taking place in other regions of the world, the report finds. Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises finds that the Middle East and North Africa had the world’s smallest share of economies implementing at least one business regulatory reform in 2012/13. Forty percent of the region’s economies reformed in an area tracked by the report, compared with 75 percent in South Asia and 73 percent in Europe and Central Asia. Among the region’s economies, the United Arab Emirates has the best business regulatory environment overall, as measured by the Doing Business indicators. The report finds that economies in the region have been slow to adopt new technology for filing and paying taxes. Only five of 20 economies have implemented electronic filing and payment systems that are widely used by firms, as measured by the report. Continued on Page 4
Speaker accused of rigging panels Oppn revives call for amending constitution By B Izzak KUWAIT: Barely a day after the inaugural session of the National Assembly’s term during which all speakers underscored the need for cooperation, cracks have started to appear sooner than expected. Shiite MP Abdullah Al-Tameemi accused
speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem of interfering in the election of Assembly committees and charged that the election of members to some committees involved sectarian factors. Tameemi said the speaker interfered in the panel elections in favour of MPs who voted for him in the election for the speaker’s post in August,
adding that Ghanem was expected to be a fair speaker but he turned out to apply a double-standards policy. The lawmaker was apparently upset after he lost the election for a seat in the Assembly’s interior and defense committee of which he was a member in the previous term. Tameemi said that
Ghanem changed just half an hour after delivering his speech in which he appealed for cooperation between MPs and the government and among lawmakers themselves. The lawmaker warned that MPs will not allow the speaker to control the Assembly. Continued on Page 13
Brotherhood leader arrested in Egypt CAIRO: Egyptian security rank-and-file members since forces arrested a key Muslim the ouster of President Brotherhood figure on the Mohamed Morsi, who also run since the July coup that hails from the Brotherhood. toppled the country’s Islamist Morsi, himself in detention, president in a raid on his has been held at an undishideout early yesterday, the closed military location since Interior Ministry said. The the July 3 coup. He is facing arrest of Essam El-Erian, the charges of inciting supporters deputy leader of the Essam El-Erian to murder his opponents while Brotherhood’s political arm, the in office. Morsi’s trial is due to begin Nov Freedom and Justice party, was the lat- 4. It is not yet clear if the 62-year old est in a wide-ranging crackdown of ousted president will appear in court. both the Islamist group’s leaders and its Continued on Page 13
MEHABUBNAGAR, India: Rescuers and others gather near the debris after a bus crashed into a highway barrier and erupted in flames in southern Andhra Pradesh state yesterday. — AP
India bus crash inferno kills 45
Qatar removes Zidane statue DOHA: Qatar has removed the Zinedine Zidane headbutt statue less than a month after it went on display following an outcry by conservatives, who slammed the art work as anti-Islam idolisation. The five-metre sculpture which immortalises the head-butt delivered by the French football legend to Italian player Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final was put on display on Doha’s corniche on Oct 3. But the statue that was sculpted by Algerian-born French artist Adel Abdessemed appears to have offended conservatives in the Muslim emirate, who saw it as a flagrant violation of religious tenets. It was removed on Monday, according to local newspapers. “Congratulations for having new idols,” wrote one tweeter sarcastically, as the Arabic hashtag “Zidane’s statue in Qatar” triggered massive reaction from dismayed conservatives. “It is sad that our youth see in this art and modernity. Continued on Page 13
Max 31º Min 19º High Tide 09:01 & 21:53 Low Tide 03:17 & 15:31
DOHA: French Algerian born artist Adel Abdessemed’s five-meter high Zinedine Zidane head-butt ‘Coup de Tete’ sculpture is seen loaded onto a lorry after being removed from Doha’s corniche yesterday. — AFP
HYDERABAD: A speeding bus exploded in a ball of flames after crashing into the central reservation of a southern Indian highway early yesterday, killing 45 passengers as they slept. Only five people on the vehicle escaped the inferno, including the driver and the cleaner who broke windows and fled before the fuel tank exploded, police said. “The total number of charred bodies found is 45, including that of a small child,” L Sarman, a senior district administrative official, told AFP. “The driver was speeding at about 120-130 kilometres an hour. He was driving all night, it seems he may have fallen asleep at the wheel,” said Sarman. Fatalities were high even by the dead-
ly standards of India, where bus crashes are common, particularly on the treacherous roads of the northern Himalayas. Police said the driver and cleaner had tried to flee the scene of the accident, which occurred around 5:00 am (2330 GMT Tuesday) between Bangalore and Hyderabad. They “tried to run, but the police caught them”, local police spokesman Venkateshwarlu, who uses only one name, told AFP. Relatives of the victims screamed and broke down in tears outside the office of the vehicle operator in Hyderabad, 140 km from the crash site. Police arrived later to question the owners of Jabbar Travels, which offer buses to cities across Continued on Page 13