Watan's Destination: Addressing Supply and Neglecting the Disease

One of the persistent pitfalls in addressing public administration problems and crises is focusing on treating the symptoms rather than the root causes. The manifestation may disappear or diminish, but the underlying disease remains or worsens in the future.

For example, we treat commercial concealment, or what is known as “Tadmeen,” as an economic crime, when in reality it reflects a market distortion that prevents expatriates from engaging directly in commercial activities. It also highlights difficulties in the business environment, represented by the triangle of (financing constraints, land availability, and bureaucracy), which hinder Kuwaiti government employees from experimenting with business ventures, even temporarily, before moving to the private sector. Another example is our approach to violations by expatriate labor, where we cut off services rather than building the workers’ cities that have been awaited for decades.

The same applies to combating fake and forged certificates, or the chain of fingerprints of public sector employees. If there were a personnel system based on employee competence and performance rather than on their academic credentials or “attendance” in evaluation, promotion, and reward, such problems would not exist in the first place.

Are we addressing traffic congestion by expanding roads or organizing traffic lights, or by improving public transport efficiency and replanning new cities so that we do not remain overly concentrated around Kuwait City and its facilities? Can tools such as taxes on vacant land or mortgages play a role in solving the housing crisis if they are not accompanied by the annual provision of tens of thousands of housing units?

Can we truly find solutions for public education crises without linking educational outputs to labor market needs? And how can public debt be considered a solution to liquidity crises if it is not accompanied by plans to reform the economy and public finances?

In fact, the phenomenon of focusing on treating symptoms rather than the disease is not limited to government administration; it extends even to popular demands. We often see calls for financial increases in salaries or loan forgiveness, whereas what would be more beneficial for the middle class is demanding measures to combat inflation and high prices, fight monopolies, regulate subleasing contracts, increase competitive spaces, and localize the production of consumer goods to serve consumers with greater sustainability and benefit.

This limited approach to crises and their causes often results in numerous decisions, media propaganda, and even heated debates between supporters and opponents, but it certainly does not produce radical solutions or sustainable remedies.

I do not know whether the focus on treating symptoms or effects, or the use of painkillers while neglecting the root cause, is intentional or a reflection of inefficiency. The examples are numerous, but it undoubtedly reflects a state of administrative imbalance that focuses on easy handling of crisis outcomes while leaving the root causes to worsen in the future.