KUWAIT CITY, Feb 6: The Parliament, during its regular session Wednesday approved the report of Legal and Legislative Committee on government draft law on combating Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling. The law has been referred to the government for its implementation.

The law was approved during the first and second deliberations. During the first reading 33 votes were cast in favor with three abstentions. During the second reading 34 members voted for and four abstained.

Article (1) of the law defines human trafficking as forced recruitment using, shifting, accommodating or receiving of persons through force or threat to use force or any other form of kidnap or deceit or exploitation of authority or influence with the aim of exploitation.

The article also defines smuggling of immigrants as arrangement for illegal entry of a person or persons in a country where he is not one of the citizens or permanent residents with the purpose to obtaining financial or other material benefits.

The second article of the law imposes a punishment of prison sentence of not more than 15 years on anybody who engages in human trafficking.

It further calls for life imprisonment for human trafficker if the crime is committed in an organized or transnational manner or if the perpetrator is a spouse of the victim or one of the family members or relative or if the victim is a child or a girl or a person with special needs, or the crime is committed by two or more people or by a person carrying a visible weapon. The trafficker will be sentenced to death if the crime leads to the death of the victim.

However, the committee had reservations on the part that said if the perpetrator of the crime is a husband of the victim or one of his family member or relative taking into consideration the legal rule that said ‘father shall not be killed for causing his child’s death’.

According to Article (3) of the law anyone committing a crime of smuggling immigrants will attract punishment of prison sentence of not more 10 years with a fine of not less than KD 3,000 and not more that KD 10,000.

The article further toughened the punishment to not more 15 years imprisonment and a fine of not less than KD 10,000 and not more than KD 20,000 if the crime is committed through an organized group, or is of transnational nature or the accused is a public worker who took advantage of his position to commit the crime or has an influence or a connection with the bodies that are in charge of entry of foreigners, crossing borders and ports.

Article (4) meanwhile imposes not more than five years imprisonment on anyone who hides a person or persons who commits or is involved in any of the above-mentioned crimes with the purpose of escaping justice or for any other purpose.

The article allows the court to pardon the accused of punishment if the person that was hidden is his spouse or one of his family members or relatives. The article also imposes punishment of not more than three years imprisonment and a fine of not less than KD 1,000 or not more than KD 3,000 or one of the two punishments on anyone who hides anything that is related to this crime.

Article (5) of the law calls for confiscating all the properties, medium of transportation and all that was used to commit the crimes.

Article (6) imposes the above punishments on the legal representative or the director of a corporate body if the crime is committed on account of the corporate body with the knowledge of the perpetrator.

Article (7) imposes a punishment of not more than 3 years detention and a fine of not less than KD 1,000 and not more than KD 3,000 or one of the two punishments on anyone who had knowledge about one of the crimes and did not inform the concerned authorities.

The article pardons the spouse, any of the family member or relative of the accused from these punishments.

Article (8) of the law imposes a punishment of not more than 15 years imprisonment on anyone who assaults or attacks any person while implementing this law. The article toughens the punishment to life imprisonment or not more than 15 years prison term if the attack results in the death or permanent physical disability of the victim.

Article (9) imposes punishment of not more than 5 years on anyone who uses force or threat or presents a bribe of any kind to persons to bear false witness or provide incorrect information to the investigation authorities.

Article (10) exempts the punishments against any of the culprits who take the initiative to inform the authorities prior to committing the crime. The article also allows the court to discharge punishment if the information occurred during investigation and if the culprit enables the authorities to arrest other culprits.
Article (11) authorizes only the Public Prosecution to investigate, act and prosecute the crimes stated in this law.

Article (12) stresses the need for the Public Prosecution and the court to take proper measures to protect victims of the crime mentioned in this law supported by medical evidence and shelters them until they are returned to the countries in which they live before the occurrence of the crime.

 Meanwhile, the Parliament, agreed to form a special parliamentary committee to investigate the incident of the pilot of the Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) who flew to Tehran in March last year in defiance of a strike organized by the KAC employees. The committee has been given 3 months to submit its report on the incident.

According to a report, the pro-government pilot, defied the strike and took off the empty plane from Kuwait to Tehran without the consent of KAC officials. MP Khalil Al-Saleh said the Iranian authority said by doing so the aircraft had violated its security and could have been shot down with a rocket from any country.
The Parliament also agreed to assign the Parliamentary Health Committee to investigate corruption and violations in the Overseas Medical Treatment file.

It also agreed to form a parliamentary committee to investigate the alleged violations in the Jaber Bridge and the Al-Zour power plant projects and gave it three months to submit its report.

Five MPs have been elected to the Al-Zour Power Plant/Jaber Bridge investigation committee - Khalaf Dumaithir, Abdulhameed Dashti, Adnan Al-Mutawa, Nasser Al-Mari, and Yaqoub Al-Sane.

During the discussion of the above issue Minister of Electricity, Water and Minister of Public Works Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim affirmed Wednesday that the Al-Zour power plant and Jaber Bridge projects have abided by the legal procedures and that their budgets were approved.

“These contracts were examined through constitutional channels, starting with the Audit Bureau, the Central Tenders Committee, the Fatwa and Legislations departments and their budgets were endorsed,” he said.

Al-Ibrahim cautioned that attempts to cast doubts on the legal basis of procedures related to the two projects may discourage potential investors. He added the Al-Zour power station was originally due to be operated this year, but its implementation was halted by the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the Assembly postponed discussions on loans of citizens and write off of accrued interests on these loans until its next regular session which is in two weeks. The delay was requested by the government so that its observations and recommendations could be included with the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee report on the issue.

Wednesday’s session was concluded with lawmakers’ criticism of the government’s annual development plan. They believe the government does not provide the Assembly with detailed reports on the plan’s developments and effective time tables and implementation plans for the projects.

In other developments, MP Nawaf Al-Fuzai announced MPs Saadoun Hamad and Abdullah Al-Tamimi will delay their grilling request against Minister of Oil Hani Hussein on various alleged violations within his ministry indefinitely.

Al-Fuzai also said he will postpone his intended grilling of the Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali on the loans issues.

Agencies add:
Kuwait’s Parliament on Wednesday voted to form a special panel to probe allegations of irregularities in two contracts worth $5.0 billion awarded to two foreign-led consortia.

Twenty-three MPs voted for the proposal, which was rejected by the government, against 20 members who opposed it. The five-MP panel must conclude its probe within three months.

A number of MPs claimed that political bargaining and secret deals were involved in the awarding of the Subbiya Causeway and Al-Zour North Power Plant a few months ago to South Korean, French and Japanese contractors.

The first contract, awarded to South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. and the local Combined Group Contracting Co., calls for building a 37.5-km (23-mile) causeway to link Kuwait City with Subbiya area in north Kuwait at a cost of $2.6 billion.

The second is for building a power and water desalination plant in Al-Zour area, south of Kuwait City for $2.5 billion to produce 1,500 megawatt of electricity and over 100 million gallons of drinking water daily.
The contract was awarded to Japan’s Sumitomo Corp, France’s International Power-GDF SUEZ and Abdullah Hamad Al-Sager and Brothers.

Minister of Electricity, Water and Public Works Abdulaziz al-Ibraheem warned MPs that the probe panel will send a “wrong message to investors” especially to foreign contractors.

He said if the power plant project is not implemented on time, Kuwait will be forced to resort to scheduled power cuts next year.

Kuwait has a production capacity of 13,000 MW now while its consumption, which grows 800-900 MW annually, was around 12,000 MW last year.

“By next year, we will have zero reserve capacity without the project and we will be forced to adopt programmed cuts,” the minister said.

Projects and development have been stalled for many years in this oil-rich country because of political bickering between government and previous Parliaments which had a strong opposition presence.

But the current Parliament is pro-government after the opposition boycotted elections last year due to a controversy over the amendment of the electoral law.