Silk City: Who is Killing Major Projects?

In a meeting with the late Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad, may God have mercy on him, when he was Minister of the Amir’s Diwan, and his office was on the second floor of the Sabah Diwan in Bayan Palace, we discussed several topics, including the Silk City project. Sheikh Nasser, may God rest his soul, explained his vision for this major project and his ambition to achieve a qualitative leap in the Kuwaiti economy and open new horizons for development and investment. After he finished his explanation, he asked for my opinion on the project. Fortunately, I had fairly detailed information about the project, its dimensions, and its implementation mechanisms. I answered him clearly that I feared this project might never see the light of day, not because of a weakness in its idea or limited ambition, but because of the constitutional, legal, political, and social obstacles surrounding it that would prevent its implementation as proposed. He looked at me in surprise and asked, “How can you say that when specialists in constitutional law and politics have been consulted?” I replied that the problem, unfortunately, does not always lie in a lack of advisors or their weak qualifications, but in a culture surrounding some decision-makers that makes the advisor keen on knowing what the official wants before offering what he believes to be the correct opinion, thereby aligning with the official’s desires and directions to protect his position and gains, even at the expense of truth and the public interest. Worse still, some experiences have proven that an advisor who respects his profession and possesses the courage to offer honest advice, even if it contradicts the official’s opinion or whims, may face exclusion and marginalization, while those skilled in flattery and endorsement find their way to closeness and continuity. Thus, the decision-maker is deprived of the most crucial thing he needs: honest feedback that reveals flaws before they turn into errors difficult to rectify.

Many major projects boast flashy titles, beautiful goals, and advanced ambitions, yet they are born with the seeds of their own failure because they are not built on a realistic study of the environment in which they will be implemented, nor on the necessary legislative, administrative, and political capacities required for their success. Silk City is not the only example; there are also the Failaka Island and other islands projects, the Free Zone, the Palm project, and others for which plans were drawn and hopes were pinned. However, when these projects were put on paper, tools and mechanisms for their failure were also embedded. The irony is that the Kuwaiti private sector, which was once a pioneer in trade, investment, and development, when faced with shrinking job opportunities at home, turned outward, contributing its capital and expertise to the development of other countries’ economies, while our projects remained confined to drawers.

Major projects do not succeed merely by issuing a government decree or through an abundance of committees and meetings. They require a stable legislative environment, flexible management, clear decision-making, and genuine trust in the private sector. The government must realize that its role is not to do everything, but to create the appropriate environment, establish rules and safeguards, and open the door for the private sector to lead investment, implementation, and operations, under wise oversight that protects public funds and national interests, and ensures fair competition and transparency. Only then can projects transform from dreams on paper into achievements on the ground. The problem has never been a lack of dreams and ambitions, but rather that we dream of future projects while attempting to implement them with the tools of the past.