Bahrain Mirror: The Al-Wasat newspaper reported that an official notice was issued by a number of ministries in Bahrain that included "a decision to stop granting overtime allowances to employees starting from next August."

According to the notice, the decision was issued within the framework of "government decree 01-2320 issued on July 13, 2015 with regards to taking the adequate measures to direct and control spending in all types of expenditures to put an end to what is unnecessary and the Ministry of Finance's notice No. 7/2015, dated July 14, 2015 regarding the appropriations, lists and special recommendations for implementing the budget for the two fiscal years 2015 and 2016."

The notice added: "We do hereby inform you to stop allocating overtime work hours starting from August 2015 and restrict it to urgent cases by compensating the employees with break hours equal to the overtime hours or add them to their annual leave only."

This decision comes within a series of austerity measures, as the authorities have already lifted subsidies on meat, which is to be implemented in the beginning of the following month, and other decisions as lifting subsidies on fuel and electricity, which have not come into effect yet.

The island kingdom has been suffering from a severe political crisis since the eruption of widespread protests in February 2011 and from a financial crisis that deteriorated with the decline of oil prices that is considered the country's main source of income. This led to the current series of austerity measures, which will directly affect the livelihood of citizens.

Arabic Issue