By B Izzak

KUWAIT: Minister of Public Works Ali Al-Mousa yesterday denied allegations that he failed to carry out his duties and implement a final court ruling regarding the illegal distribution of hundreds of state-owned agricultural plots. Speaking during a grilling by opposition MP Abdullah Al-Mudhaf, the minister said some 400 land parcels mentioned in the court ruling were all distributed in 2013, more than nine years before he was appointed in the Cabinet.

Mousa said that the grilling against him was filed just 22 days after becoming minister and despite repeatedly informing the griller that he was prepared to cooperate on the issue. The minister added that a report on the entire issue prepared by the Audit Bureau was available during the tenure of former minister Shaye Al-Shaye, "but the lawmaker did not grill him and decided to grill me days after my appointment".

Mousa said when MP Mudhaf gave him the report, he told him he would form an investigation committee to probe the issue, but the lawmaker refused and filed the grilling. "The lawmaker is grilling me for land distributed when I wasn't a minister," Mousa insisted. The minister said he has referred the issue to the public prosecutor and was ready to send the issue back to the prosecutor with more documents.

He said after the court of cassation issued its ruling to seize 396 land plots from beneficiaries because granting them was illegal, he asked the government's legal department on Feb 9 to form a committee to oversee the implementation of the ruling. He said on Feb 15, the director of the agricultural authority issued a decision to form a committee to discuss the mechanism of implementing the ruling. Mousa insisted that these measures certainly were against corruption and corrupt people and proof that "I did not fail in carrying out my duty".

At the start of the grilling debate, Mudhaf said that he obtained the Audit Bureau report in December, and then asked that implicated employees should be suspended and referred to the public prosecution. The lawmaker insisted that the court ruled that all the 396 land parcels should be taken away from those who got them through illegal channels. At the end of the debate, 10 opposition MPs filed a no-confidence motion against the minister. Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem said voting on the motion will take place on March 16.