Amir welcomes assembly action on PM’s grilling

KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah yesterday welcomed in a letter to the National Assembly the action taken by MPs to refer a grilling against the prime minister to the legal and legislative committee to review if it complies with the constitution. In the letter, the Amir said he felt comfortable over the democratic atmosphere in the session on Tuesday and expressed his esteem for the Assembly for understanding the calls in his earlier letter to deal with wisdom with the issue.

The Assembly on Tuesday voted 41 to 20 to refer the grilling filed by opposition MP Shuaib AlMuwaizri to its legal and legislative committee to study it and submit a report back to the Assembly. HH Sheikh Sabah said he is confident that the high level of responsibility exhibited by a majority of MPs will motivate the Assembly to continue the democratic march that will help achieve national interests.

Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem thanked the Amir for his letter. Ghanem also said that the Assembly will work to amend some errors in the

labor law in the private sector, but did not explain the nature of the errors. MPs however have repeatedly called for amending certain provisions to encourage Kuwaitis to seek jobs in the private sector. The speaker also said that the Assembly will discuss in its next session the early retirement law and called for reaching a compromise on the controversial bill to serve the interests of pensioners and those of the social security institution at the same time. He said some amendments were needed to the existing law - which was rejected by the government - to achieve those targets, adding that the law will be debated in the next session on Dec 11.

Meanwhile, acting speaker MP Awdah Al-Awdah prematurely adjourned the session for a lack of quorum needed to vote on requests by the public prosecution to lift the immunity of three MPs. MP Al-Humaidi AlSubaei criticized the decision by the acting speaker, saying that he should have continued with issues that needed no quorum.

MPs Riyadh Al-Adasani and Abdulkarim Al-Kandari criticized whom they called pro-government MPs who did not attend the session, leading to its cancellation, adding that those same lawmakers who disrupted the session have been claiming that grillings prevent the Assembly from functioning. Kandari charged that the government mobilized these lawmakers in order to protect the prime minister and ministers during grillings and they are the ones who abstain from normal sessions, thus obstructing its work.

Also, MP Mohammad Al-Hadiya warned he would grill Information Minister Mohammad Al-Jabri over changing the name of a historical area named after Hadiya’s Al-Awazem tribe and also over violations in the agricultural authority.