News 2005

Iraqi legislators are not enjoying attending the parliament meetings
June 29, 2005

By peyamner.com:

Meeting number 31 of the Iraqi National Council was held after one hour of its scheduled time. First item discussed was criticizing the chair of the Council. Due to frequent travels abroad, both Mr. Hajim Al-Hasani, Chair, and Mr. Hussein Shahrstani, First Vise Chair, were not attending the meetings for quite sometime.

As reported by Kurdistani Nwe [a Kurdish paper issued in Suleimany, Iraq], these criticisms came from the legislators as the meeting was hardly reaching its quorum. Out of the 275 members, only 138 attended the meeting. Soon after passing half an hour on its commencement, there were less than 100 members in the meeting hall. Meanwhile, the number of attendees from the Kurdistan Coalition Faction was not exceeding 30.

The meeting took place at the Baghdad Summits Palace and was chaired by Mr. Arif Tayfoor, Second Vise Chair. Dr. Fuad Masoom, head of the Kurdistan Coalition Faction, highlighted that the public are not happy about the non transparency of the meetings and the excessive rights and benefits given to the council members. He mentioned that there are talks among the public that each member was recently paid the amount of 75 millions Iraqi Dinars [equivalent to US$50,000]. He also asked for a reform in the Terms of Reference of the Legislation Committee and forming a new Committee as they are not complying with the meeting schedules. Ms. Samira Al-Musawi suggested to ban the legislators’ abroad travels unless are very necessary.

Source in Kurdish: peyamner.com.
Translated into English by: Khalid Hussein, Iraq Foundation.

 

Source Link: http://www.peyamner.com/article.php?id=14320&lang=kurdish