Kuwait Times

Published Date: August 31, 2008
By A Saleh, Staff Writer

KUWAIT: With the start of the month of Ramadan and the approaching beginning of the legislative term, the political climate has begun to warm up for the questioning of various ministers. MP sources revealed that the name of state minister for council affairs Faisal Al Hajji is one of the ministers expected to be grilled.

The Popular Bloc has discussed the minister and his responsibility towards the tender committee, as well as his role in the application of tender law by submitting the project of the 4th refinery and mega projects for the tender committee regulations, as these things are within the state minister's jurisdiction.

MP Saleh Ashoor has demanded that the Audit Bureau do its duties in a transparent manner, protecting public funds and not facilitating illegal transactions for tenders outwith its control.

Ashoor said that Audit Bureau Director Mohammad Al-Roomi's official statement on the Fourth Refinery was in favor of supporting the project, particularly his final statement, which indicated that the Audit Bureau has no prior jurisdiction over the Fourth refinery project, with its supervisory role beginning later. He also pointed out that the Audit Bureau's supervision must cover all contracts exceeding KD 100,000 and questioned contracts valued at billions of dinars not being subjected to auditing supervi
sion.

Ashoor said that all oil companies are owned by the state and its contracts are administrative in nature and thus must be supervised by the Audit Bureau both before and after Ramadan, as per Articles 7 and 14 of Audit Bureau legislation. Ashoor emphasized that this means that all contracts concerning the Fourth refinery must be presented to the 'Fatwa and Legislation' committee and the tenders committee for supervision and the Audit Bureau must also supervise them.