Speakers in Austria to consolidate policy

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 6: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim arrived in Vienna, Austria on Monday to attend the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament that will end on Sept 8.

Kuwaiti Ambassador to Austria and Kuwait’s permanent representative in the international organizations in Vienna Sadeq Maarafi, along with a Kuwaiti diplomatic delegation, welcomed Al-Ghanim upon his arrival.

Al-Ghanim will deliver a speech at the conference, join the 11-member Preparatory Committee, and participate in the consultative meetings of the speakers of Arab parliaments to consolidate their positions on regional and international issues.

The Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament will tackle many vital issues; such as ways to achieve sustainable development, challenges that the entire world is currently facing due to the response of countries regarding the Covid-19 crisis, prevent the circulation of misleading information and hate speech on the Internet, nullify laws which discriminate against women and girls, and the requirement that parliaments should approve governmental decisions concerning coronavirus.

The conference includes symposiums on the new global declaration to ensure equality between men and women; ways to mitigate the negative effects of Covid-19 regulations on democracy, climate change and sustainable development; and ensuring balance between open parliaments and transparency on one side, and ensuring security, safety and privacy on the other hand.

Meanwhile, MP Bader Al-Humaidi forwarded queries to Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Affairs Rana Al-Fares about the contract for the implementation of Kuwait International Airport T1 project.

He asked why the ministry refloated the tender to the same companies even if the State Audit Bureau (SAB) rejected the first portion of the tender, why the ministry did not exercise its right to amend the value of the contract in line with certain changes like the removal of some items and granting more privileges to the contractor, reasons behind the weak monitoring of the performance of the contractor that caused almost 500 days delay, violation of safety regulations which resulted in 56 incidents and one death, progress rate of the project, steps taken regarding the violations committed by the contractor, why the Council of Ministers approved awarding a portion of the tender to this contractor, and if investigations were conducted on the violations that the contractor committed.

MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri asked Minister of Interior Sheikh Thamer Ali Al-Sabah about the appointment of the deputies of the director general of the General Criminal Investigations Department.