MPs react to Legislative Committee’s decision to combine 3 amnesty bills

‘Accord puts honest, disloyal citizens together’

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 25: A number of MPs reacted to the decision of the parliamentary Legislative Affairs Committee to combine three amnesty bills – general amnesty for those convicted of storming the National Assembly building, Abdally cell convicts and Abdulhameed Dashti.

MP Muhammad Barrak Al-Mutair described the decision as betrayal to the nation rather than constitutional violation. He pointed out that the decision puts honest and disloyal citizens together, while calling on Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim to stop abusive acts against the nation and the Constitution. He said Al-Ghanim should return the report to the committee and obligate the latter to be committed to the Assembly’s decision in order to stop such frivolity.

MP Abdullah Fehad stressed that combining the bills is an old trick and it entails using the Abdally cell case to disrupt the ratification of the General Amnesty Bill.

Violates

MP Naif Al-Merdas said the objective of combining the bills is known and it violates the Assembly’s decision in this regard. He thinks the issue on storming the Assembly building will define the relationship between the Assembly and the government in the coming period.

MP Thamer Al-Suwait wondered how pro-reform persons are considered equal with betrayers and terrorists. He claimed someone is persistent in making citizens lose trust in State institutions.

In another development, MP Dr Abdulkareem Al-Kandari has called on the government to take all precautionary measures to fully prepare for a possible outbreak of corona virus. He emphasized the need to toughen procedures to be sure that people entering Kuwait, especially those coming from countries where the virus emerged are not infected.

MP Muhammad Al-Dallal intends to submit a request to allocate one hour of the next parliamentary session for the government to present its plan regarding the virus, which started to appear in China and is spreading in different countries; thereby, threatening the health of all citizens and expatriates.

Scholarship

Meanwhile, the Educational Affairs Committee has approved the proposal of MP Abdulwahab Al-Babtain to improve the conditions of Kuwaitis studying abroad on scholarship.

It can be recalled that the Assembly Speaker forwarded the bill to the committee on April 9, 2019.

According to the proposal, the Ministry of Higher Education will form a committee to review the budget allocated for the scholarship of Kuwaitis studying abroad in cooperation with Kuwaiti embassies, cultural attachés and students unions.

Furthermore, the Budgets and Final Accounts Committee discussed the budget of the State Audit Bureau (SAB) for fiscal 2018/2019.

During the discussion, the committee underscored the need to activate the Internal Monitoring Unit that will look into the comments of monitoring bodies, considering the Ministry of Finance observed that a number of comments have yet to be addressed.

The committee also deliberated on budgets allocated for different items which reached about KD 200,000 – 35 percent of the total budget.

The committee inquired about the reason behind the absence of the chairman of SAB despite the fact that important issues need to be discussed in his presence such as comments on the final account on the exceptional armament budget at the Ministry of Defense which is covered by the Public Reserve Fund. The committee stressed the importance of increasing the budget of Ministry of Defense to develop the latter’s monitoring system; otherwise, it will reject the proposed budget.

The committee called for developing the ability of the Financial Controllers Bureau (FCB) to monitor institutions which are not under the control of SAB including SAB itself. It pointed out the law clearly stipulates that all public institutions are under the monitoring of SAB, but some institutions have presented justifications to be exempted.

The committee confirmed support for efforts to develop human resources at SAB by offering training courses for national workers to acquire advanced professional skills in accordance with the strategy of the State.

In addition, MP Abdulkareem Al-Kandari urged Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Nasser Al-Muhammad to take deterring diplomatic measures in response to the statement of the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Philippines who threatened the lives of Kuwaitis. He asked the government to take a decisive position on this issue which, he believes, will develop from a domestic labor issue to a political issue aimed at blackmailing and threatening Kuwait.