Social security fraud: 5,000 Kuwait families under scanner

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait has launched a probe into a suspected scam involving 5,324 families accused of faking documents to obtain government social security payments, a minister said on Tuesday.
Social Affairs and Labor Minister Hind Al-Sabeeh told the official KUNA news agency that millions of dollars in public funds were illegally taken by these families on the basis of false claims. The families number around 52,000 people in a country with 1.3 million native citizens.
The minister said payments were made to 1,479 Kuwaiti women who claimed to be single but were later found to be married.
There were another 1,283 cases of Kuwaiti women claiming they were married to stateless people but were found to be married to Kuwaiti citizens, she said.
Meanwhile, Kuwait’s lower court on Tuesday sentenced 30 female nationals to one year in jail for illegally taking wages from a government program aiming at encouraging citizens to take private sector jobs.
The court said the women took salaries from the national labor support program for two years after registering as employees at a private firm but without actually working.
The court also handed the employer a one-year sentence and ordered all of the women to return the money they took from the program in addition to fining them $3,300 each.
The sentence is not final as it can be challenged.