MP Ma’araficriticizes govt’s stance

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 10: MP Dawood Ma’arafi submitted a grilling motion consisting of three items against the Minister of Public Works Dr. Amani Buqamaz. MP Ma’arafi criticized the stance of the government in support of the minister in the grilling motion. He explained that the government should have waited to hear and figure out the evidence before adopting a stance of solidarity towards any party. In case the government issues any similar statements, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah will be subject to a grilling motion.

The lawmaker revealed that he obtained over 1,000 pages filled with violations and corruption cases involving the Ministry of Public Works. He indicated that he does not mind merging his grilling motion with the one submitted by his colleague MP Mubarak Al- Tasha, stressing that he aims only at the public interest. Ma’arafi warned Dr. Buqamaz against making any attempt to arrange a quid pro quo with any of the MPs, revealing that if he finds out about any such attempts, he will expose them.

The grilling motion filed by MP Ma’arafi against Dr. Buqamaz included the following three items:
1 - Squandering of public funds, non-enforcement of the law, and the failure to complete the tasks. Regarding this item, Marafie explained that it concerns the bad way the Ministry of Public Works dealt with the Public Authority for Roads and Transportation (PART), and the way it put obstacles before PART to keep it from completing the specified tasks. The wrong attitude of the Ministry of Public Works eventually led to its nullification based on a decision issued by the Council of Ministers. The decision was preceded by the resignation of the chairman and deputy chairman of PART on December 4, 2022. The reasons behind the resignation included the lack of technical workers, which led to the failure to carry out an accurate estimation of the project’s cost, the weakness of the internal audit department, dependence on expatriate workers to do work, lack of sufficient workers and the move to refrain from passing specializations to PART.

Damaged
roads MP Marafie said Dr. Buqamaz, in November 2022, said the issue of damaged roads dates back 18 years. However, earlier in March 2022, she indicated that the reason behind the deterioration of roads is the failure of PART to hold those responsible for the issue. He highlighted the contradiction between both statements, stressing that the minister said the problem dates back 18 years, which means the issue started several years before the establishment of PART.

2 - The failure of the ministry to follow up the execution and maintenance of projects, which in turn refl ected negatively on the environment as well as the citizens’ interests. Ma’arafi revealed some examples such as the violations and errors in the Umm Al-Haiman drainage network and its dangerous effect on the environment and citizens’ health.

3 - The violations concerning the establishment of the new Kuwait International Airport which included the delay in completion, receiving the approval of the ministry to the changes in the design of the runway without consulting the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA), violating the agenda of the government, targeting some workers in DGCA, and refraining from executing court rulings.

Meanwhile, MP Abdullah Al-Anbai submitted a proposal to create an electronic interface between Sahel application and the Civil Services Commission (CSC) in order to ease the procedures for applying for jobs and the appointment of willing citizens. He stressed that the lack of such an interface causes trouble for individuals who want to apply for jobs because they are required to undergo a complicated process in different public institutions including the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Kuwait University and other private universities, which exhausts these individuals and increases the traffic jam.

Furthermore, MP Osama Al-Shaheen submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of Finance Fahad Al-Jarallah regarding law No. 51/2010 to establish a fund to deal with the issue of insolvent debtors with loans from military funds. He said, that according to the above-mentioned law, the fund will replace the debts and write off the loan interests of the beneficiaries. Al-Shaheen wanted to know the number of cases that have already been addressed, and the amount of money collected and yet to be collected. Also, MP Abdul Kareem Al-Kandari submitted a proposal to cancel the requirement of personal interviews for the applicants for jobs of a technical or field nature. He suggested that, for the cases that are not included in the aforementioned item, a maximum of five percent of marks will be allocated to personal interviews, which must be audio-visual in nature, recorded, and made available to any of the applicants to access to support his claims of being abused.

In another development, parliament’s Committee for Health, Social and Labor Affairs unanimously approved the bill aimed at amending the second article of law No. 24/1979 concerning cooperative societies. This happened during a meeting held in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Civil Services Commission (CSC), and the financial controllers at the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies (UCCS)

By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh
Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff