Assembly passes law to accept bedoons in army
MPs to grill minister today • New prison being built to tackle overcrowding
KUWAIT: In a tension-packed session that included a verbal exchange between the speaker and an opposition lawmaker, the National Assembly yesterday passed several laws including one allowing the government to accept stateless people or bedoons in the army. MP Askar Al-Enezi, the head of the interior and defense committee, said that over 25,000 bedoons are waiting to join the army. The Assembly also passed amendments to the fund for small and medium enterprises, limiting the soft loan ceiling to just KD 500,000, and also approved a law on regulating conflicts of interests.
The session also agreed to debate a grilling against State Minister for National Assembly Affairs Adel Al-Khorafi today after the minister requested it. The minister is charged of failing to perform his duties and providing MPs with a wrong response to a question.
The session kicked off with a heated exchange between opposition MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri and Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem over a demand by the government to investigate claims made by Muwaizri during a previous session. Muwaizri protested strongly at the position of the speaker, reminding him that lawmakers cannot be held accountable for whatever they say inside the Assembly chamber and the government request is illegal. He said the speaker should have immediately rejected the demand.
Muwaizri said if such a request is made again, he will immediately grill the prime minister.
He reiterated that Ghanem should have turned down any such request. Ghanem said no decision had been made on the request, but Muwaizri accused the speaker of treating the Assembly like the council of ministers. MP Saleh Ashour also criticized the government’s move on the issue and said lawmakers should not be questioned for whatever they say in the Assembly chamber.
The assembly then approved a motion asking its human rights committee to investigate the circumstances of a bedoon man who set himself on fire. Ashour criticized the interior ministry for publishing the criminal record of the man. MP Khalil Al-Saleh called on authorities to naturalize the 34,000 bedoons the government has admitted qualify for consideration for citizenship.
Opposition MPs Jamaan Al-Harbash, Waleed AlTabtabaei
and Mohammad Al-Mutair, who were in prison over storming the Assembly, strongly criticized the treatment they and other prisoners have received, and also criticized the Assembly office for not taking any action on their case. They insisted that no lawmaker should have been jailed before a final court verdict and before their parliamentary immunity is lifted.
They also complained about the extremely inhuman situation in the central jail. Interior Minister Sheikh Khalid Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah said that the capacity of the prison is 2,500 inmates and currently it is home to 6,000 people, adding that “the whole of Kuwait will not be able to resolve this problem”. He also announced a plan to build a new prison and deport foreign inmates to their countries to tackle overcrowding at the central prison. On MPs’ queries about installment of devices at the central prison to jam inmates’ phone communications, Sheikh Khalid affirmed that such jammers have been removed.
Meanwhile, MP Mutair said that expatriate employees working at power plants have not received their salaries for several months, adding this is one of the main causes for the rift with the Philippines and called on the prime minister to intervene.