ShareKUWAIT: Health Minister Ali Al-Obaidi said yesterday he is ready to face a questioning filed by two lawmakers over alleged financial and administrative violations as the grillers added a new accusation. Obaidi said that he is fully capable of refuting the accusations which are inaccurate and based on baseless information. The grilling debate is expected to take place tomorrow or Wednesday. MPs Rakan Al-Nasef and Humoud Al-Azemi, who filed the grilling, yesterday added a new alleged violation about a doctor at Amiri Hospital who was found to hold a fake degree. The grilling request was filed on Dec 14 and its debate last month was postponed due to the death of MP Nabil Al-Fadhl.
Meanwhile, head of the Assembly's women committee MP Saleh Ashour said the panel will meet next week with interior ministry officials to discuss granting children of Kuwaiti women married to foreigners a permanent residence permit sponsored by their mothers. Ashour said the committee discussed yesterday with justice ministry officials the legal status of properties inherited by foreign children from their Kuwaiti mothers and how these can be registered.
He said that under Kuwaiti law, Arabs are allowed to own one plot of real estate not exceeding 1,000 sq m in exceptional cases only and by an Amiri decree. The committee wants to find a way to register real estate inherited by expatriate children from their Kuwaiti mothers and the panel is awaiting the response of the legal and legislative committee to two draft laws submitted in this regard, Ashour said.
MP Saud Al-Huraiji yesterday warned that he may be forced to file to grill new Public Works Minister Ali Al-Omair over the status of roads and loose gravel following rains. Huraiji said that the ministry has failed to implement recommendations issued by the Assembly following the grilling of former public works minister Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim over the same issue. The lawmaker insisted that the ministry must take legal actions against those responsible for the flying gravel, which has damaged the windows of vehicles.
Deputy Assembly speaker Mubarak Al-Khrainej called on the government yesterday not to return the Kuwaiti ambassador to Iran until after Saudi-Iranian relations are restored in order to prove that the Kuwaiti envoy had not been recalled simply for consultations as claimed by the Iranian ambassador to Kuwait, but in support of Saudi Arabia. Kuwait recalled its ambassador from Tehran in protest against the attacks on Saudi embassy in the Iranian capital and its consulate in the city of Mashhad.
By B Izzak
