Wednesday 13 / November / 2024
Muscat: Tawfiq Al Lawati, the man tasked with advising the government on finding urgent solutions to Oman’s oil crisis, has revealed why he walked away from the job.
Tawfiq headed up a Shura special committee assigned the task of addressing the economic crisis and its effect on people in an effort to come up with proposals to help.
His committee’s recommendations were delayed on Thursday when the council broke mid-session and deferred the hearing until November.
“Deferring the meeting of a supposedly urgent committee to the next parliament session was not giving enough urgency to the crisis and that is why I decided to step down,” Tawfiq Al Lawati, head of the Shura’s special committee, said.
The committee had 12 recommendations to discuss, but while they were discussing the seventh, there was a controversy over passing the entire report last Thursday or deferring it to the next calendar year for the parliament.
He said the recommendation was about cutting water and electricity subsidies to all businesses except for residential buildings for Omanis.
However, the proposal suggested that water and electricity subsidies should not be lifted for expatriates even in residential buildings.
The committee’s report emphasised that attention should be paid to families with incomes of less than OMR600 a month.
“The report suggested withdrawing subsidy from everybody and give direct financial subsidy and support to families with OMR600 or less monthly income,” Al Lawati said.
Al Lawati said that experts agree that flat subsidies are an unfair method, as there are people who don’t need subsidies and the government should give the privilege only to those who “deserve it”.
He added that expatriates should pay for unsubsidised electricity bill.
“Such system is implemented in neighbouring countries,” he added.
He suggests the same should apply for oil subsidies.
“These actions will reflect positively on the Omani citizen and the future generation in the long term,” he added.
It is worth mentioning that six of the committee’s recommendations were approved by Majlis Al Shura before stopping at number seven and postponing the meeting to the next parliament session, which means that the meeting can be hold either in November 2016 or June 2017.
“It can even be postponed further,” Al Lawati commented.
Talking to the Times of Oman, Al Lawati broke his silence saying that the Shura Council started this committee in March giving it a specific task and mandate to deliver by June.
“This is a very sensitive and important issue to the society. It can’t be delayed and take any more time to come up with actions or suggestion,” Al Lawati said, adding that he felt that his committee has fulfilled its requirements and that the Shura Council should have continued with the report’s discussion.
He said the delay showed that the issue is not being taken seriously.
“Since the members decided to extend the time of the committee, my decision was to step down and let other people come up with new ideas. Maybe we will have better suggestions and solutions,” he added.
The Portland State University graduate resigned on Thursday from his position as a member and head of the oil price effects on society committee.
Commenting on the controversial proposal by the Shura members to merge a number of ministries and other government bodies, Al Lawati said that the idea is still on the table.
However, he says the government should decide which authorities must be merged.
“Majlis Al Shura follows the government. It is not a research centre and the concerned institutions should work on implementing the suggestion,” Tawfiq concluded.
