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Chief-in-Editor  Prof. Badria A. Al-Awadi

In an effort to activate government and administrative work in the State of Kuwait to achieve the goals of the current phase, the Council of Ministers issued an official circular at the beginning of last November to ministries and government agencies stipulating the full implementation of corporate governance principles in all government employee activities, in order to enhance integrity and transparency, and to ensure proper control within government agencies that provide direct services to citizens. According to statements made by government officials following this circular, the implementation of corporate governance rules aims to improve job performance, enhance the quality of services provided to citizens, and achieve development priorities.
To achieve this, the Council of Ministers has tasked control and auditing officials in ministries and government agencies to implement these instructions across all government offices. It also stipulated the organization of awareness and training workshops for leadership and executive employees. In this practical implementation context, an important training programme was organized on governance, its foundations and requirements, specifically directed at executive categories, with the participation of more than one hundred (100) government employees working in various government and functional sectors. A workshop was also organized on corporate governance applications and mechanisms for their implementation. This is the third of its kind. The first workshop was specialized and targeted government leadership and all assistant undersecretaries who had completed a specialized governance program. The second workshop attracted supervisory staff, including directors, department heads, and supervisors.
This third workshop was attended by the executive category of employees, who are responsible for implementing government and administrative policies. These employees perform important tasks directly related to beneficiaries in particular and the public in general and reflect the effectiveness of policies and the quality of services. Therefore, the workshop included theoretical and practical lectures delivered by specialists in governance and good management.
To reinforce the corporate governance approach, the Cabinet tasked the Civil Service Bureau with creating new positions, including “Institutional Performance Improvement Specialist,” “Institutional Performance Monitoring Specialist,” “Indicators Management Specialist,” and “Institutional Communication Specialist.” It also emphasized the need to empower and qualify national cadres by providing them with accredited international professional certificates relevant to the newly created positions.
The Cabinet reaffirmed a decision taken in 2020, tasking the Civil Service Bureau with coordinating with the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Controllers Authority, and other relevant entities to link the renewal of leadership positions to clear performance indicators, including compliance with financial laws and regulations, the requirements of the development plan, and the number and type of failures and violations recorded by control bodies in the entities under their jurisdiction. It stipulated that the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development be tasked with coordinating with the Government Performance Follow-up Agency and all relevant entities, to determine the roles and responsibilities of government agencies for all international indicators included in the system report, in order to achieve benefit by improving the performance of the State of Kuwait in international indicators, and to task the Central Statistical Administration with coordinating with the Government Performance Follow-up Agency to provide the necessary statistical data to support the system’s indicators. The Cabinet also emphasized the need to oblige all government agencies to understand their responsibilities and roles regarding international indicators, prepare the required data for each indicator in advance, and develop unified automated models for monitoring the implementation status of national and international strategies and indicators. The Civil Service Bureau, the General Authority for Combating Corruption, and the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development were tasked with coordinating with the Government Performance Monitoring Agency during the implementation phase of institutional governance within the state’s administrative apparatus, so that the agency can fully monitor the implementation of this system.
In the light of the above, it can be noted that the adopted procedures reflect new and interactive organizational and administrative thinking and practice, which evokes the value of corporate governance and its importance in activating the performance of the state’s administrative apparatus in a way that achieves development priorities and goals and improves the services provided. They also reflect a new approach in which policies, directions, and plans are linked to practical and applied procedures and methods, which ultimately leads to tangible achievements, and a real renaissance that advances the country and responds to the aspirations of society.
There is no doubt that many factors can help achieve the above, foremost among them is the fact that the State of Kuwait has adopted the values, principles, and provisions of corporate governance for decades, and this has been evident in numerous initiatives, including the issuance of legislation and the establishment of regulations in the economic and financial fields (commercial companies – Capital Markets Authority – Central Bank…), administrative, social, and other fields. Furthermore, the government’s practical and applied approach is important and influential.