Member of the Board of Directors of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company’s Workers’ Syndicate, Muhammad Abdullah Al-Kandari, said the union had asked the company more than once to look into the quality of foreign technical workers in the maintenance department and had warned that unskilled workers may cause unimaginable accidents.
Al-Kandari went on to say, “Unfortunately, what we had previously warned of has happened — successive explosions and fires, some of which resulted in deaths caused by less-experienced foreign labor, and contractor companies that do not have the expertise and technical manpower needed to manage such a vital sector.”
Al-Kandari demanded, in the name of the KNPC workers’ union, that contractor companies with bad labor be reconsidered and open the door of employment for nationals in the maintenance department, as was the case in the past, which was closed for more than twenty years ago.
He added, “we do not know why the effective national elements are being excluded and replaced by less-experienced foreign workers?
“Has saving become more important than human lives, and more important than the production process? Knowing that these contracts cost more than national labor.”
He added, this number of accidents and explosions during the last three years is unprecedented, so the decision makers must work to stop the bleeding and save lives and equipment, in order to protect the reputation of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company among its peer companies.
