Opposition MP Riyadh Al-Adasani

dasanKUWAIT: Opposition MP Riyadh Al-Adasani yesterday blamed National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem for the delay in sending to the government a key early retirement law that could result in preventing the Assembly from easily approving it. According to Adasani, the law was passed by an overwhelming majority of 43 MPs on May 15, 2018, but Ghanem took more time than expected to send it to the government. This gave the government time to reject the law and send it back to the Assembly on July 5, when MPs were on summer recess, Adasani said.

Under the constitution, the government has the right to reject laws passed by the Assembly within 30 days of receiving them. The Assembly can overturn the rejection in two ways: Either by a two-thirds majority in the same term or by a simple majority in the next term. Adasani said when the speaker delayed sending the law to the government, it allowed it to reject the legislation within the stipulated constitutional period and send it back to the Assembly during the summer recess.

This means that to overturn the government rejection and pass the law again, the Assembly needs a two-thirds majority in this term, Adasani said. If the speaker had sent it a few days earlier, the government rejection would have come in the previous term, and the law could have been overturned in the new term, which will open on Tuesday.

Adasani also blamed Minister of State for Assembly Affairs Adel Al-Khorafi for the delay and warned that this could trigger a constitutional crisis. The lawmaker said the delay is similar to attempts to scrap grillings in the Assembly. He also warned that he will include this violation in his grilling of Khorafi, expected to be debated on the Assembly's opening day.

Meanwhile, the Assembly's public utilities committee decided yesterday that the public roads authority should continue to exist and made a number of recommendations to amend a few provisions of its law. Separately, MP Mohammad Al-Dallal asked the oil minister about the number of Kuwaiti chemical and petroleum engineers in each oil company compared to expatriate engineers. He also asked why the oil sector did not hire Kuwaiti chemical and petroleum engineers in the past three years.

By B Izzak