KUWAIT: (From left) Parliamentarians Ahmed Al-Azemi, Abdullah Al-Turaiji and Ali Al-Khamees walk through the parliament building on their way to file the grilling request against Finance Minister Anas Al Saleh. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

KUWAIT: Three lawmakers yesterday filed a request to grill Finance Minister and Acting Oil Minister Anas Al-Saleh over the government decision to raise petrol prices. Another lawmaker, Abdullah Maayouf, also filed a separate request to grill the justice and Islamic Affairs Minister over alleged financial and administrative violations. MPs Abdullah Al-Turaiji, Ali Al-Khamees and Ahmad Al-Azemi said in their grilling that the government decision to raise petrol prices was "unjustified" and taken without any study.

Although the council of ministers has taken the decision, the three MPs blamed the Finance Minister for failing to check rising corruption in the country and taking sufficient steps to stop the squandering of public funds. In his request to interpolate justice minister Yacoub Al-Sane, Maayouf accused the minister of exploiting his position for personal benefit and for a host of alleged financial and administrative violations in addition to failure to cooperate with lawmakers.

The two grillings, besides the grilling filed on Sunday also against Sane by MP Ahmad Al-Qhudhaibi, will certainly intensify the political crisis in the country between the government and the National Assembly over a variety of issues, mainly price hikes. There have been calls by a number of MPs for the government to step down after they claimed it has failed to manage the economic file in the wake of the sharp drop in oil prices.

Earlier this week, a number of lawmakers anticipated that the Assembly will likely be dissolved even before its starts the new term next Tuesday. "The government has proven that it is incapable of running the country" said Turaiji after filing the grilling against the Finance Minister. "The Kuwaiti people are not beggars" he insisted while explaining the reasons for filing the grilling. The grilling is based on three main issues; mismanagement and random decisions, squandering oil resources and a lack of credibility in cooperating with the National Assembly.

"As we have promised the Kuwaiti people that we will file to grill the finance minister for raising petrol prices, today we are fulfilling our pledge," MP Khamees told reporters. "If the National Assembly gets dissolved, we will resubmit the grilling in the new house if we get elected" he said. MP Azemi urged the government to withdraw its decision on petrol prices. "The government must back down on its decision of raising petrol prices. We have cautioned the government several times ... We will not accept that ordinary people bear the burden of the government failure" Azemi said. Petrol prices were increased by between 40 and 80 percent by reducing government subsidies in a bid to contribute to plugging a budget deficit resulting from low oil price.

Kuwait posted a budget shortfall of KD 4.6 billion in the 2015/2016 fiscal year which ended March 31 for the first time after posting healthy surpluses for 16 consecutive fiscal years. The government is projecting a deficit of over KD 8.7 billion in the current fiscal year. The government said it will resort to borrowing through bond issuance in the domestic and international markets to meet the budget deficit. In a bid to resolve the standoff with MPs, the government offered last week to provide 75 liters of free petrol monthly to every Kuwaiti citizen with a driver's license. It excluded expatriates from the grant.

But a majority of MPs rejected the offer as insufficient and demanded that the government totally exempts Kuwaiti citizens from the hike. They also warned that if the government does not withdraw its decisions, they will file to grill ministers. More grillings are expected to be filed next week. MP Faisal Al-Kundari has vowed to file to grill the finance minister over the petrol price hike. He said he will file the grilling on the first day of the new term next Tuesday. Three more MPs, Jamal Al-Omar, Saleh Ashour and Hamdan Al-Azemi are reported to be preparing to file to grill the prime minister over the petrol price hike.

MP Jamal Al-Omar was reported by local newspapers as saying that the national assembly may submit a no-cooperation motion with the government to the Amir who will then either dissolve the assembly or dismiss the cabinet. Veteran MP Khalaf Dumaitheer said earlier this week that he expects the Assembly to be dissolved within days. Under the constitution, only the Amir has the right to dissolve the assembly before completing its term. Political consultations over the weekend and early next week will determine the future of the national assembly already in its last term of the four-year life.

By B Izzak