No quorum, no quarrel on expats
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KUWAIT CITY, Feb 2: Parliament Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim on Thursday adjourned the special session on the demographics issue due to lack of quorum. Members of the executive and legislative authorities accused each other of causing the lack of quorum which led to postponement of talks on the above mentioned issue.
MP Saleh Ashour pointed out, “This is in favor of expatriates so we regret that some lawmakers have opted not to shoulder their national responsibility by being absent from such an important session.” MP Yusuf Al-Fadalah disclosed some lawmakers who signed the special session request were absent, while MP Hamdan Al-Azmi was surprised by the absence of government members and blamed his absent colleagues for the lack of quorum.
MP Osama Al-Shaheen asserted, “We attended the special session today as it was slated for deliberation on an important issue but the government’s attendance is low compared to that of the last two days.” He also blamed the MPs who were absent for the lack of quorum, indicating the demographic issue has been pushed to number 14 on the government’s list of priorities.
On the other hand, Justice Minister and State Minister for National Assembly Affairs Faleh Al-Azab accused those who requested for the special session of failure to establish the required coordination. He stressed the government attended the session but some people are putting the blame on the executive authority instead of the MPs who were absent. Commenting on talks about the possible resignation of the information minister, Al-Azab said this is not true clarifying the decision lies in the hands of the political leadership and the prime minister.
While indicating that cancellation of sessions seems to have become the order of the day due to disagreements and lack of quorum, MP Safa Al- Hashem disclosed she sent a memo to the Technical Office of the Budget and Final Accounts Committee about the steps taken by the government regarding the growing population of expatriates and elimination of visa trading.
According to the memo, the number of expatriates working in the government sector reached 94,000 and their salaries totaled KD 544 million apart from other privileges like health insurance and travel tickets.
The memo presented a breakdown of expatriate workers and their salaries as follows: a total of KD 517,862,700 for the salaries of 76,757 expatriates working as teachers, nurses, printers and related jobs; KD 4,169,000 for 555 expatriates working as consultants and related jobs; and KD 22,177,300 for 16,863 expatriate laborers. Al-Hashem added the total remittance of expatriates reached KD 18 billion annually — around 53 percent of Kuwait’s oil revenues.
In another development, MP Riyadh Al-Adsani has submitted a request to allocate one hour of the session slated for Feb 14, 2017 to discuss the multimillion million dollar deposit scandal, adding that 24 MPs have so far signed the request. Moreover, Parliament will hold a special session on Feb 8, 2017 to vote on the no-confidence motion against Minister of Information and State Minister for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Salem Al-Houmud Al-Sabah and the next regular session will be on Feb 14, 2017.
By Abubakar A. Ibrahim Arab Times Staff
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