A big number of small business owners complain that they face the risk of their businesses being ‘unceremoniously being uprooted’ on which they have spent a lot of money, time and effort because the authorities falsely accuse them of trafficking in drugs and other contraband.
Speaking to a local Arabic daily, they say many of them who are owners of restaurants and mobile food trucks, are subjected to collective “punishment campaigns” by government authorities, considering that the campaign to remove their vehicles “was preceded by campaigns of incitement and rumors that they sell drugs and intoxicants, and mix them with beverages,” while a vast majority of young entrepreneurs “are committed to religion and the morals of society, and to the legal regulations followed in the country.”
They added the crimes committed by some project owners distort the image of the Kuwaiti youth who remain committed to their profession and are law abiding, stressing that the restrictions on them and the closure of their projects unjustly have greatly harmed them because they are weighed in the same scale with corrupt few.
The daily has learned the government agencies relevant to regulating the issue of commercial mobile food trucks held a meeting with their owners to look into their claims and submit regulatory proposals regarding their presence in residential areas and on highways.
The government meeting with the owners of the food truck came after their union issued a statement, the day before yesterday, in which they denounced the “heavy handed government measures”, which “damaged our projects, despite the government’s failure to specify locations in which we are located,” stressing that “there are 4,000 licensed vehicles operating within the mobile activities.
The owners of restaurants and mobile vehicles denied the charges against them, stressing that their projects sell products and foodstuffs subject to the supervision of the competent authorities, and that these projects are “dreams of the Kuwaiti youth, implemented by their owners to provide an alternative to relying on government jobs as a monthly income.”
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