SHORTAGE OF STAFF PROMPTS 'CLOSURE' OF SEVERAL PETROL PUMPS, RESULTING IN LONG QUEUES

  • 29/05/2022

Kuwait City: The failure to allow the company to bring in workers, according to Abdul-Hussain Al-Sultan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the "Oula" Fuel Marketing Company, is the reason for the congestion seen at the company's gas stations, which has resulted in a reduction of workers by more than 50%, forcing the company to reduce the number of pumps operating at the stations.  


The number of workers decreased from 850 to 350, which prompted the company to reduce the number of operating pumps, saying, “Since the corona crisis, the Public Authority for Manpower has not allowed us to bring workers from abroad, and requested the hire workers available in the labor market in Kuwait who are not qualified or trained to work in this profession. Al-Sultan explained that “the company is about to find solutions within a week, whether by reaching a solution with PAM regarding the recruitment of workers, or an alternative solution by generalizing self-service, as each person will have to fill in his car, and then there will be a worker where the money will be paid as an alternative solution,” stressing at the same time, “exempting the elderly, people with special needs and women from self-service.” 

In a related development, sources at the "Al- Soor" Fuel Marketing Company (Alfa) stated that the company's workforce has shrunk from 600 to 700 to around 200, owing to the fact that some employees have gone on vacation or moved for better opportunities elsewhere. The scarcity of trained staff, as well as the PAM procedures for recruiting workers and their high expenses, are among the most notable issues in the gas station crisis, according to sources. 

He stressed that the stations and their management work efficiently, and that stopping some pumps comes in proportion to the size of the current workforce and not a defect in the system, calling for cooperation of all to bypass the existing problem. The sources called on the concerned government agencies to understand the needs of gas stations, especially that the worker is trained, but the problem is in the laws that allow him to leave work after two years if a better opportunity is found. For his part, the Executive Vice President of Local Marketing at the Kuwait National Petroleum Company, Ghanem Al-Otaibi, confirmed  that the company’s gas stations are operating at full capacity to serve all consumers, and that it does not face any problems in its 64 stations in various regions.

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