KUWAIT: The three-member National Assembly committee formed to investigate the destruction caused by heavy rains last month will take two months to complete its probe, its rapporteur said yesterday. MP Khaled Al-Oteibi said the investigation will take this time because it involves many issues related to damage caused by the rains and loose gravel. The committee was given authority to discuss the issue with ministers and top government officials to determine what went wrong and who is responsible.

Minister of Public Works Hussam Al-Roumi, who came under fire and was held responsible, has submitted his resignation, but the government has yet to decide whether to accept it or not. The minister in the meantime has set up an independent investigation committee to probe a number of road contracts signed by the public roads authority in the past few years.

MP Thamer Al-Suwait meanwhile proposed an amendment to the 1961 insurance law stipulating to make it mandatory for insurance companies to compensate Kuwaitis and expatriates for damage caused by floods and flying gravel. The lawmaker said in his proposal that floods are part of natural disasters, while losses from road gravel are caused by bad infrastructure and people must be compensated by insurance companies in both cases. He said insurance companies should also be forced to compensate people for traffic accidents caused by flying gravel from roads. To force such compensation, article 2 of the insurance law should be amended, Suwait said.

The Assembly’s foreign relations committee began yesterday looking into the issue of billions of dinars of development loans offered by Kuwait to dozens of countries, head of the committee said yesterday. MP Abdulkarim Al-Kandari said acting on an assignment by the Assembly, the committee invited head of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development and other top officials to study the loans. The committee will focus its discussion on the political benefits made by Kuwait through the soft loans and the compliance of debtor countries to repay.

By B Izzak