The benefits and allowances paid to the workers of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries account for more than 72% of the total spending on salaries, worth 1.1 billion dinars, out of 1.52 billion dinars spent in the fiscal 2021/2022 of about 21.8 thousand male and female employees.
The oil sector, a local Arabic daily quoting sources said, pays great attention and care to the national manpower, and the KPC and its subsidiaries have been keen to lay the basic foundations to ensure the provision of a stable social and functional life for them, as the average monthly salary of a worker in the oil sector is about 6,000 dinars, including the basic salary, benefits, bonuses and allowances.
Accounting, the allowances and benefits received by workers in the oil sector are divided into 20 different items, detailed as follows:
— Allowances: Employees receive 7 allowances with a total value of about 439.4 million dinars, concentrated in the cost of living allowance of 54.5 million dinars, a social allowance of 83.9 million dinars, a housing allowance of 36.2 million dinars, a transportation allowance of 9.4 million dinars, and a transfer time allowance worth 53.8 million dinars, shift allowance 10.9 million dinars, and another allowance 190.56 million dinars, while the allowances follow another classification that includes overtime through which oil sector employees earned 79.55 million dinars during the last fiscal year.
— Employee benefits: It includes 11 items of benefits, with a total value of about 602.4 million dinars, distributed over housing for workers worth 13.7 million dinars, educational assistance 1.5 million dinars, vacation tickets 17.7 million dinars, end-of-service bonus 146.5 million dinars; the employees’ retirement at a value of 99.1 million dinars, medical services at Ahmadi Hospital at a value of 218.9 million dinars and workers’ insurance 5.7 million dinars.
While the employees of the sector received an incentive bonus of 48.89 million dinars during the last fiscal year, they received 11.3 million dinars for social services, 8.7 million dinars as an additional grant and about 30.2 million dinars for other benefits. During the past year, spending amounted to 13.448 million dinars.
The KPC and its subsidiaries seek to reduce operating expenses such as the cost of expanding organizational structures, travel missions, sponsorships, consulting, social activities, acquisition fees, and others. KPC reassured on more than one occasion that the measures to rationalize spending taken by it have nothing to do with workers’ salaries and benefits guaranteed in accordance with the provisions of the laws.
KPC relies on the fact that it succeeded in reducing benefits and salaries for the fiscal year ending in March 2022 by 232.7 million dinars, or by 13.2%, as the total actual salaries and benefits amounted to 1.52 billion dinars, compared to 1.76 billion dinars estimated in the approved budget.