A perceived "excess in femininity" delays customs appointments || Newspapers (Arabic)

The president of the civil service council strongly denied yesterday allegation of gender discrimination in the appointment of assistant comptrollers within the customs services which is attached to the Ministry of Finance.  He noted that all forms of discrimination are unconstitutional and the council only takes the issue of competence into consideration when deciding on recruitments.  The notes of the official were made in a report published by the As Safir newspaper which investigated the delay in appointing assistant comptrollers from those who have successfully passed the entrance exam.  The candidates had accused the administration of customs services of concocting a plot against them over the past 11 months.

As Safir indicated that the root cause of the problem lies in decree number 124, which was issued back in May 13th 2009, which stipulated the agreement of the Ministry of Finance to appoint comptrollers without specifying the required numbers.  Two subsequent decrees were issued on June 15th 2011 (numbers 553 and 554) by the council for civil service defining the regulatory mechanisms for the entrance exams required for these jobs which are classified as category 4.  The council issued a subsequent decree on 5 July 2011 calling for an entrance exam on September 19th in which 1788 candidates succeeded. Finally the decree number 380/2 was issued in its final form, announcing the 280 winners candidates, of whom 200 were women and 80 men while the Council of Civil Service was trying to fill 120 vacant positions.

The winning candidates visited many parliamentarians for follow-up but empty promises and ignorance is all what they got. In a meeting with the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, revealed the exact reason for the delay in appointment when he told the delegation he hosted: “See, women seems cleverer than you”. One of the senior officials at the customs’ administration was quoted as saying: “Is there a brighter truth that the problem is in the excess of femininity”, adding “Do you want them to say that I ruined the customs and made it all women?”

On a related note, a source at the customs administration, informed As Safir that “currently there are 97 man assistant comptroller and 42 women; hence, appointing winning candidates would not mess the gender balance. Since there is 64 vacant positions classified as category 4, and the borders’ centers do not need more than 25 assistant comptrollers all in all. Therefore the excuse that this job is of difficult nature and requires traveling to remote regions is not a valid. He added that this job is different from the customs control which includes around 1800 members and can be considered as an armed force.

Source: Assafir 7 November 2012