KUWAIT: Minister of Public Works and State Minister of Housing Jenan Bushehri said yesterday that she has referred a case against MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri to the public prosecution for investigation. The issue was raised by Muwaizri two days ago when he claimed that the minister had provided false and forged information in an answer to a question by MP about housing contracts.

Muwaizri said that the answer implicated him saying that he was responsible for the contracts when he was housing minister in 2012. The lawmaker accused the minister of providing false information and warned to hold her accountable for what she did. She however said yesterday that she referred the whole issue to the public prosecution for investigation. There was no immediate response by Muwaizri on the minister's action.

In another issue, opposition MP Riyadh Al-Adasani said yesterday he has received information that some local banks have informed authorities about inflated accounts for a number of lawmakers and called for action. Adasani said that those banks have informed the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Finance Ministry and the State Security police of the inflated deposits of some MPs, but he gave no further details including the names of allegedly implicated MPs.

The lawmaker called on authorities, especially the ministers of finance and interior to take the issue to court without delay and threatened that if no action was taken he will file to grill the ministers, especially the finance minister under whom the FIU comes.

A similar deposits scandal was exposed in about a decade ago in which it was alleged that 13 MPs had received political bribes worth over KD 50 million to alter their voting in the national assembly. The case was briefly investigated by the public prosecution which shelved the case for lack of legislation and urged the national assembly to issue the necessary laws.

Although the national assembly launched its own investigation into that scandal, no action has been taken and some of the implicated MPs are still serving as members of parliament. Yesterday's national assembly session was adjourned hardly two hours after opening because of a lack of quorum. MPs virtually discussed no issues during the brief session.

By B Izzak