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Customs on an indefinite strike

A friend of mine sent the email below which was sent to him by his couriers account manager:

The Kuwait customs have gone on an indefinite strike. The strike will affect clearance at the airport and land customs, as well as the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There will be no road movements into or out of Kuwait until the strike is over.

Clearance of inbound material (including Documents) at both the airport and land customs will be suspended throughout the strike.

Export from Kuwait will also be affected, and only Conveyable Non documents and Documents that can be transferred via passenger channels at the airport will be able to move.

Regular pickup’s will be carried out, until further notice.

There is a possibility that the strike could last more than one day, however we do not have confirmation of this as yet and will communicate as soon as we do.

I’ve got six packages currently held in customs and I guess I shouldn’t be expecting them to be cleared anytime soon. This sucks.

Update: Spotted the below on Buz Fairy taken outside the customs department. Can someone please tell me what “Customs we apologize to serve you strike a comprehensive” means?

29 replies on “Customs on an indefinite strike”

The ministry of trash? Well, that might not effect the country that much considering the country is full of trash everywhere?

Shouldn’t someone high up in the government make some sort of statement to all these striking government workers?

@Bu Firaz Agree. Government offices are for production, not for routine, reliance and indolence; they are places for creativity. This government fails to run the government sector. I think it is not so much the workforce, but the lack of motivation and direction by management. In addition, the lack of interest by upper levels of the government who themselves struggle to understand the need for transparency.

The best measure of a government’s success is the satisfaction of those who deal with it. A job in the government is not just a way of making a living; it is a means of contributing to your country. I guess all these people don’t realize this? However, someone should be listening to their complaints and analyzing all our comments on this blog.

The multiple misspellings and bad English translation in the above pic is exactly what we’re talking about.

All airway bills, goods’ manifests, clearance documents… etc. They all come in English. Period. And yet, Customs’ staff don’t know English, and force the importer to translate them into Arabic.

And if the shipment happens to get delayed in the meantime, then be it.

And now they dare and ask for raises. They dare to compare them selves to the qualified professional workers of our OIl sector.

Go learn how to read first, then ask for raises!!

the sign above is a clear example of how to not use google translating service. Just copying and pasting whatever is said without checking what it means makes the people going on a strike look like a bunch of morons.

Got basic English? I don’t think so! How about a crash language course for those working in customs? It is a scary thought that the people responsible for handeling our stuff do not have a grasp of the English language while most of our stuff comes from the US and Europe.

And you wonder why the delays?!

Example:

Customs guy: Duh, what does that say?

another customs guy: Gee…duu….i dunno! How about we wait until the guy that speaks English comes by so we can ask him?

Customs guy: EYAhh…aha…that sounds like a plan. Now lets kick back, some some cig, drink some tea and see what else we can find.

“customs We apologize to serve you strike an incomprehensibility”

So important documents and perishable medical products will get stuck in customs for a indefinite length of time, sounds like business as usual.

It is a literal translation and instead of ‘general strike’ they translated to ‘comprehensive strike’. a combination of google’s machine translation and word’s word jumbling power…:-)

lol i heard something on TV, they’re complaining about radiation and crap? WTF! what has this got to do with customs? and i’m certain there are no nuclear power stations in kuwait. someone explain please.

Security scanning equipment used to X-ray large containers gives off tons of radiation. You actually can’t be around this for more than a couple hours and you should also be tested periodically for radiation levels. Also with strikes like USA they will bring In so called “scaps” to do
The work and maybe just fire these guys
Striking. Is there anytype of unions in Kuwait?

It’s affecting also the Visas on Arrival, this morning the counter inside the airport was on strike and it took about 90 minutes for the clearance.

Can someone update us on the status of the airport? Is the strike still on? What about immigration at KIA, are they customs? The newspapers here, as usual are not timely and are reporting old news.

I hope someone from the custom department reads this blog..lol and whenever any non arab tries conversing in english its idiots like these who blast at you by saying “are u american..then dont speak english”..thats like the most dumbest reply i have ever heard..its sad

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