The National Assembly.

By B Izzak

KUWAIT: MP Bader Al-Humaidi yesterday submitted a proposal calling on authorities to deport expats who are suffering from chronic psychological and neurological illnesses as their treatment could take years. In another proposal, Humaidi also called for terminating contracts of expat legal consultants and replacing them with Kuwaitis within one year.

Bader Al-Humaidi

In his first proposal, the lawmaker calls on concerned ministers to determine expats suffering from chronic psychological and neurological illnesses whose treatment could take years and then send their names to the interior ministry to start deporting them. He however called on the government to exempt "humanitarian cases" that may need financial support but provided no details about such cases. Humaidi said two weeks ago that health officials told him in an answer to a question that there are 37,000 expats who are receiving treatment at the psychiatric hospital, placing a heavy burden on the hospital.

In the meantime, Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem placed three grilling motions against the prime minister and one grilling against the health minister on the agenda of the Assembly's regular session tomorrow, but added a note to the agenda stating that a decision was passed two weeks ago delaying grillings against the premier until the end of 2022.

Adding the grilling to the agenda has been the main demand of opposition lawmakers who threatened to start an unprecedented procedure of removing the speaker from his post. During a regular session boycotted by the opposition two weeks ago, the Assembly voted to accept a request by HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah to postpone grillings against him until the end of 2022.

Opposition MPs insist that the vote was null and void because it did not get the required majority, which was illegally retaken by the speaker. Opposition MPs are adamant that the prime minister must face the grilling as he promised before, but the problem is that the opposition has the sufficient numbers to approve a possible non-cooperation motion against the prime minister, which needs just 25 MPs. The opposition has at least 30 MPs.

Approving a non-cooperation motion against the prime minister means that HH the Amir has to either sack the premier or dissolve the Assembly and call for snap polls. Leading opposition MP Mohammad Al-Mutair said the prime minister has two options - either to face the grilling or step down.