KUWAIT: Former MP and candidate Dr Bader Al-Mulla spoke about a working program he will present to voters to help him evaluate the priorities of an MP, monitor their performance and hold them to account. Mulla said the program is titled "Seriousness of Supervision and Quality Legislation", pointing out that this slogan is not just a campaign promise that came out of the blue; rather it is an affirmation of an approach he adopted and implemented in reality inside the Abdullah Al-Salem hall when he was elected during the complementary election in March 2019.

Mulla stressed the necessity to achieve integration between the two parts of the program - seriousness of supervision must reflect on developing and upgrading legislations and predicting the need for them in a way that guarantees the enhancement of government performance and preserving rights. Legislations must keep in mind flexibility and wise governance that guarantee the best performance in service of Kuwait's developmental priorities, bearing in mind the study of the practical effects of implementing those legislations.

Mulla summarized the first part that is related to serious supervision into main points, including parliamentary questions, investigation committees, grillings, the Audit Bureau, adopting transparency in declaring the country's financial status and fighting corruption. Mulla said he will use parliamentary questions as a serious supervisory tool, away from media and political blackmail in order to follow up the extent of the agreement of the executive authority's work with the laws, making sure the government implements the legal duties mentioned in issued laws, and follow up what was done and whether it agrees with those duties.

Grillings
Dr Bader Al-Mulla insisted that it is not acceptable to strip the grilling tool of its powers under any pretext, affirming that he refuses striking out grillings. If a grilling has any constitutional discrepancies, then MPs should rule whether to drop it after allowing the griller to present the grilling. It is also not acceptable to send the grilling to the constitutional court to explain constitutional texts related to it because the interpretation of the constitution must be free of any practical events, in addition to not accepting the referral of the grilling to the legislative affairs committee to discuss its constitutionality because this is not in its jurisdiction.

Mulla said the Audit Bureau is one of the most important supervision tools over the government's performance. The bureau's reports were previously used by the investigation committees he chaired or was the rapporteur of due to their accurate financial content. Based on this, Mulla declared that he will seek the removal of any difficulties that the bureau may face, be they legal, administrative or otherwise, in order to enable it to continually develop and upgrade its systems and its supervisory indicators in a way that guarantees supervision that it more methodological and objective and which produces more transparent reports.

Mulla said no one disagrees that the state treats the citizen in a way that is mysterious in explaining the state's financial status, as the state's financial condition is totally absent from public opinion, as they cannot monitor the basis of managing of state funds and the future generations' reserves. It should be learned from previous experience when public opinion was absent from monitoring the investment mechanism at the Public Institution for Social Security, which led to the deterioration of retirees' funds through investment in "poisoned" investments during the previous administration of the institution.

Fighting corruption
Mulla said the size of financial and administrative corruption that is rampant in Kuwait is not hidden from any person, as a result of the absence of public and private deterrents through the laxity of government bodies in strictly monitoring implementation of laws and rules, apart from the weakness of supervisory authorities in having strict financial supervision on systems.

This resulted in corruption issues in the past and present, and the clear evidence is in the military scandal, the Eurofighters commissions and finally the Malaysian sovereign fund scam. Mulla said fighting financial and administrative corruption will only be possible through courageous decisions and imposing a sense of the law's clout in the state without any differentiation in dealing with society members.

Mulla said the quality of legislation depends on two elements - Assembly committees and legislation of laws. He said he will also run for the financial and economic affairs as well as the legislative and legal affairs committees. As for legislation, Mulla said he wishes to participate in presenting new legislations that serve and organize the current needs of the Kuwait society, adding that lack of patience in legislation and inability of the National Assembly led to issuing some laws that are full of grave mistakes, and they must be amended.

Mulla said he will propose the upgrading and development of the law related to organizing the population structure in a timely and gradual form to correct the structure without affecting the marketplace, housing care laws in order to guarantee the right of benefitting from housing care for those who are past the marrying age (men and women) who were not married before, as the laws that regulate housing care did not pay attention to this group, as well as the social security law to increase the maximum insurance limit in a way that guarantees pensioners a dignified living.