Inactivity and paralysis hits parliamentary committees

‘Foggy political scene’

By Abdulrahman Al-Shammari

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 21: Despite the start of the third legislative term being almost a stone’s throw away, and the expectation for the level of alertness within the parliamentary committees to be very high for completing the reports that they are tasked to prepare during the parliamentary recess, the opposite has happened.

There is not only a noticeable reduction in quorum, but most of the committees have not convened despite invitations to members to attend meetings that have been tabled.

Parliamentary sources attributes this to what they describe as a “foggy political scene”.

They explained that the Foreign Affairs Committee was scheduled to convene last Tuesday but it lost quorum due to non-attendance of its members.

The Committee for Employment Crisis and Replacement also cancelled its meeting, which was supposed to be held on Saturday, due to the same reason.

Some committees had to be forced to hold their meetings with just two or three members, while others held their meetings without endorsing any of the topics on their agenda. Some were content with general discussions related to the articles of laws and proposals with the committees due to lack of sufficient quorum that will allow the committees to approve them.

The sources indicated about the concern that some MPs have about the instability of the political situation and repetition of several scenarios imposed by the escalation of parliamentary interpellations especially since a number of them are scheduled for the opening session of the third legislative term.

In this context, MP Khaled AlOtaibi urged MPs to attend committee meetings and be committed because “they are a measure of the actual work of a member of parliament in the completion of laws and proposals that concern the country and citizens”.

He said the committees are considered “kitchen of legislation and laws”, the approval of which citizens look forward to; but unfortunately many of the committees did not meet in the recent period because of lack of quorum.

MP Al-Otaibi blamed the parliamentary recess and the travel of some MPs abroad; however, he stressed the importance of resumption of activity within committees to complete the reports on their agenda especially the topics that were mandated by the Parliament for completion during the parliamentary recess.