A senior MP threatened to resign from Parliament yesterday following a tense discussion with Speaker Ahmed Al Musallam.
The row centred over the alleged ‘removal’ of several legislations before the end of the parliamentary term.
Parliament’s services committee vice-chairman MP Mohammed Al Olaiwi said his ‘resignation was ready’ claiming that he felt he was being unfairly treated by the general-secretariat office.
In reply, the Speaker said that there were administrative and parliamentary rules to follow and some of the proposals for ‘probes’ had been dropped because supporting MPs had withdrawn support, while others were ‘scheduled in the two upcoming sessions’.
“A resignation is an MP’s choice but we don’t want to reach that stage,” he added.
Meanwhile, MPs unanimously approved issuing two statements on tomorrow’s International Workers’ Day and World Press Day, which falls on Saturday.
MPs deputised Mr Al Musallam, who earlier spoke on the occasions, to issue it on their behalf.
Parliament also approved a government-drafted legislation that aims to strengthen the private sector’s access to credit and enhance Bahrain’s competitiveness in global business readiness indices and forwarded it to the Shura Council for review.
The draft Law on Secured Transactions, consisting of 60 articles, seeks to particularly empower small and medium enterprises to leverage their movable assets as collateral for affordable financing, without disrupting their use.
MP Dr Ali Al Nuaimi questioned the insertion of several English terms in the law. Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments Minister Nawaf Al Maawda said Arabic was the original and English terminology used as an indicator, as it is more commonly used.
MPs also unanimously approved two mutual investment agreements with the Korean Republic and a mutual taxation agreement with Oman and referred them to the Shura Council for review.
Parliament’s second deputy speaker MP Ahmed Qarata questioned how a ‘Mr Kim’, a Korean employee in the Bahraini Embassy in Seoul, was ‘taking up a position that a Bahraini should be hired in’.
MP Mamdooh Al Saleh said Mr Kim was proving his worth with trade reaching around BD172.5 million annually.
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