MANAMA, 10 March 2004 — Bahrain’s Parliament dismissed yesterday a government bid to delay questioning of three ministers about alleged pension fund fraud and allowed the process to go ahead before a house committee under internal rules within two weeks.
MP Ali Ahmed said the services committee could start work within eight days but the government could also request two weeks to prepare.
The new parliamentary session, which resumed yesterday after winter holidays, spurned a call from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Abdul Aziz Al-Fadhel to postpone the questioning about the alleged irregularities and the ministers’ role in waiving loans to finance a number of projects.
Bahrain’s government is looking at reorganizing two pension funds after a parliamentary probe into alleged irregularities into the retirement scheme for civil servants and a social security fund for private sector employees.
MPs in January demanded the right to question Labor and Social Affairs Minister Majid Al-Alawi, who chairs the board of the social security fund, as well as his predecessor Abdul Nabi Al-Shoala, who is today a minister without portfolio, and Finance Minister Abdullah Seof.
The questioning will mark the first time Bahrain’s 40-member Parliament has grilled ministers since it was restored in late 2002.
as part of reforms which turned the Gulf state into a constitutional monarchy.
Bahrain’s elected parliament was dissolved in 1975 after it clashed with the government over a state security law.
