Sit-in continues; ‘End stalemate’ – ‘Parliament at standstill’

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KUWAIT CITY, June 15: The 17 MPs, who boycotted the special session allotted for voting on the Retirees Bill, continued their sit-in at the National Assembly building for the second day on Wednesday. These MPs include Thamer Al-Suwait, Abdulkareem Al-Kandari, Khalid Al-Otaibi, Muhannad Al-Sayer, Hamdan Al-Azmi, Abdulaziz Al-Saqaabi, Hassan Jawhar, Al- SaifiMubarak Al-Saifi, Ahmed Mutei Al- Azmi, Fares Al-Otaibi, Mehalhal Al-Mudaf, Abdullah Al-Mudaf, Shuaib Al-Muwaizri, Muhannad Al-Hewailah, Bader Al-Mullah, Soud Bu Sleeb and Mubarak Al-Hajraf.

According to Al-Saqaabi, they decided to hold the sit-in to voice their objection to what they consider disruption of political life. He pointed out the new government has yet to be formed although almost one and half month has passed since the resignation of its predecessor. He said Kuwait is now a State managed by acting officials; considering that more than 100 senior positions are vacant including undersecretaries, assistant undersecretaries and chairpersons of public institutions

Suspended
He stressed that parliamentary work is almost suspended, indicating the Assembly worked for 212 days and was suspended for more than 226 days since it was elected because of the resignation of three consecutive governments. He added these issues surfaced concurrently with the perennial problems like the rising prices, deterioration of public services and housing problems. He said the MPs have the right to express their objection to the suspension of the Constitution in a civilized and peaceful way like the sit-in.

However, Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim reacted to such civilized action in an abusive manner when he ordered turning off electricity at the Assembly building, except the table lights in the MPs’ offices; thereby, forcing the MPs’ secretaries to leave. He added the speaker also prevented the entry of citizens and delivery workers who brought meals for the MPs. On the other hand, the Engineering Affairs and Services Department at the Assembly explained that the electricity is automatically turned off after 8:00 pm as part of the electricity rationalization strategy of the Ministry of Electricity and Water.

Nevertheless, MP Khalid Al-Otaibi said he was in the building the night before the grilling of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al- Khalid; during which the electricity was on until he left after midnight. In a relevant development, the Popular Action Bloc issued a statement highlighting the importance of the sit-in; calling for the continuation of such action until the resumption of ordinary sessions. It added that public institutions should work regularly according to the Constitution, not the whims of the heads of such institutions. It also stressed the need to stop the domination of the executive authority over its legislative counterpart, while urging citizens to support the sit-in.

On the other hand, Budgets and Final Accounts Committee Chairman MP Adnan Abdulsamad said the meeting scheduled for Wednesday was adjourned due to lack of quorum. He revealed they were supposed to vote on the budgets of 45 public institutions, calling on his colleagues to attend the upcoming meeting to vote on these budgets. He added the committee has so far held 35 main meetings and four sub-meetings, affirming it will soon finalized discussion on the State budget. He disclosed the committee agreed with the speaker to complete its report on the State budget before June 20, urging the Ministry of Finance to send the amendments on the budget as soon as possible for the committee to discuss and vote on them.

Meanwhile, MP Muhammad Al-Mutair asked Minister of State for National Assembly and Youth Affairs Muhammad Al Rajhi if the Board of Directors of the Public Authority for Sports approved the basic system for Kuwait Football Association (KFA) on April 7, 2022. If yes, he requested for the list of board members who signed the minutes of the meeting, as well as copies of the minutes and correspondences with FIFA. He wants to know if the basic system for KFA was forwarded to the Legal Advice and Legislation Department to obtain its legal opinion.

Queries
MP Mehalhal Al-Mudaf forwarded queries to all ministers about the measures taken to enforce Decree No. 17/2017 and Civil Service Commission (CSC) decision number 11/2022 on the Kuwaitization of public sector jobs. He wants to know the percentage of nationals employed in their respective ministries and subsidiaries compared to expatriate workers; criteria for recruiting expatriates instead of nationals; list of expatriate consultants in every ministry and subsidiaries, their nationalities, qualifications, salaries, allowances, years of experience and job description since Jan 1, 2020 till date; and list of expatriate workers whose salary is higher than KD890 and are occupying supervisory or leadership posts.

MP Ahmed Al-Hamad asked First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah about the rising number of married Arab women who entered the country on visit visas in the last months of pregnancy in order to deliver in public hospitals here. He wants to know the total number of the top five communities of expatriates according to official statistics including their gender and employer, exceptional cases for granting family visa from 2018 until the second quarter of 2022, number of family visas granted to each of the five biggest expatriate communities per year, number of Residency Law violators in each of these five communities, and conditions for granting family and visit visas. By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh Arab Times Staff

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