Mislem said the two blocs have agreed to jointly submit the grilling within the coming few days and have offered the National Action Bloc to join, and they said they will study the offer.
The two groups have eight MPs in the National Assembly but they also have several supporters and the backing of several others. If the National Bloc agrees to participate, the number will certainly be greater than 20 MPs.
The grilling could lead to a motion of non-cooperation with the prime minister and this requires the support of at least 25 MPs to pass. A number of opposition lawmakers have already claimed that they have the required number to vote the prime minister out of office.
Mislem said that the government has not done enough in the face of the deposits scandal in which the bank accounts of several MPs allegedly received close to KD 100 million in the past few months.
The lawmaker said that if the "government’s hands were clean" in the scandal, it would have led efforts to dissolve the Assembly and then resigned. At least two local banks have referred the accounts of nine MPs to the public prosecution for an investigation into the huge deposits.
More bank accounts are expected to be referred to the prosecution in the coming weeks.
The decision to grill Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah came after opposition MPs called at a gathering Tuesday night for a joint effort to force the premier to quit.
Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei vowed at the gathering that if the grilling does not lead to ousting the prime minister, "I will resign my seat in parliament.
This is a promise". The grilling cannot be debated before the Assembly starts its new term on Oct 25 amid many rumours and unsourced reports that the house could be dissolved before then.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali declined to provide details about the bank deposits scandal in an answer to questions submitted by MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun.
Saadoun had asked for details about the cases of illegal deposits into the accounts of MPs and the role of the Central Bank, but Shamali in a lengthy answer provided general information about the role of the Central Bank as stipulated in the anti-money laundering law and other legislation. But Shamali stressed that the Central Bank has not given permission to any bank to make exceptions to the law regarding any deposits, particularly those of MPs.
Also, in an unprecedented move, opposition Islamist MP Dhaifallah Buramia yesterday disclosed his wealth based on bank accounts of him and his children, saying he wants to clear his name in the corruption scandal. Buramia was responding to reports in some newspapers and on Twitter implicating him in the illegal deposits scandal. He showed the details of his bank account to reporters to show that his account never exceed KD 4,000 in any month.
MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun meanwhile called on the government not to remain silent against a demand reportedly made by 100 Iraqi MPs to renegotiate the border demarcation which was made by the UN Security Council in 1993.
Saadoun said the government should immediately act to respond to such moves by Iraqi MPs and make it clear that the demarcation was based on a Security Council resolution and cannot be changed.
