KUWAIT: MP Ahmad Al-Fadhl said yesterday he will file to grill Social Affairs and Labor Minister Hind Al-Sabeeh today over alleged violations at the Transparency Society which is an NGO supervised by the ministry. The lawmaker said that he had given the minister a one-month ultimatum to carry out a number of demands regarding the society but the minister has failed to do that and accordingly he has decided to file the grilling.

The lawmaker however left the door ajar for avoiding the grilling and gave the minister until tomorrow to respond to his demands. Fadhl charged that the society has played a negative role in Kuwait getting a low grade on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) prepared by the Transparency International every year. Over the past decade, Kuwait has slipped from 35th place to 85th last year on the scale that includes about 200 countries.

Fadhl said that he has asked the minister to force the Transparency Society to open its membership for all Kuwaiti nationals in a bid to allow them to freely elect the board of directors. He also wants the minister to allow the establishment of new transparency societies by people who were forced to quit the present one. Fadhl said that he has asked the minister and the government to contest the CPI grades on Kuwait and find out the basis for the country's low placing.

In another development, Fadhl criticized calls by some MPs asking the government to return citizenship revoked for a number of opposition leaders. He said that the government should not return such citizenships because they were obtained through illegal ways. Meanwhile, MP Waleed Al-Tabtabai asked the Interior Minister for a list of the numbers of driver's licenses issued by ministry since 2015 for Kuwaitis and expatriates as well.

By B Izzak