Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Ahmad Al-Rujaib reportedly tendered his resignation at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday, just nine days before he is scheduled to face two grillings.

MP Riyad Al-Adasani, who filed one of the two grillings against Rujaib, said he has learned that the minister bid farewell to the top officials at the ministry yesterday morning before leaving the ministry. But he said his information still need to be confirmed.

So far, there has been no official announcement about Rujaib’s resignation because the issue is handled by HH the Amir who can accept or reject it. The debate of the two grillings against Rujaib are scheduled to take place on June 20.

Adasani said he will continue to follow up the issues he raised in the grilling against Rujaib and vowed that he will grill the next minister if he does not deal with the issues he raised in the grilling.

MP Saifi Al-Saifi, who submitted the other grilling, expressed hope that Rujaib’s resignation will be a lesson to all those who may try insult a section or a group of the Kuwaiti people through racist behaviours that undermine the national security of any country.

In his grilling, Saifi charged that Rujaib had written articles in a local newspaper that were deemed highly racial against bedouin tribes, insisting that those articles should have prevented his appointment to the Cabinet in the first place.

If the resignation is confirmed, Rujaib will be the second minister to resign from the Cabinet formed in mid-February following snap polls in which the opposition scored an impressive victory.

Former finance minister Mustafa Al-Shamali resigned last month following a marathon grilling over allegations of wide-ranging administrative and financial irregularities, which the minister categorically denied.

Shamali’s resignation has been accepted. Also, Minister of Awqaf and Justice Jamal Shehab offered to resign but the Amir asked him to continue.

Parliamentary and political sources have predicted a Cabinet reshuffle is expected to take place during the summer as more ministers are being targeted by MPs with grillings. Commenting on the resignation, opposition MP Abdulrahman Al-Anjari called for forming a “national salvation” government with representatives from various political groups or with several ministers from the opposition bloc, which controls the majority in the National Assembly.

Anjari said the national government should include representatives from the majority and the minority in order to get Kuwait out of its current crisis to achieve stability in the face of regional conflicts impacting the country.

He said the current government is weak because it is not backed by the majority and includes ministers from the minority, adding that the next Cabinet should include at least six ministers from the majority.

Rujaib and Shamali were repeatedly criticized since the former was included in the Cabinet for the first time and Shamali retained after serving for over four years.

Meanwhile, the administrative court yesterday rejected a lawsuit filed by MP Ali Al-Rashed against Assembly Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun over changes in the Assembly’s complaint against MPs who had led the storming of the Assembly building last November.

At the time of the incident, former speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi filed a complaint which accused several MPs and dozens of activists of forcibly storming the Assembly and damaging property.

After the February elections in which the opposition won, the new speaker Saadoun and members of the Assembly’s bureau changed the complaint to reduce the level of the charges on those who stormed the Assembly. MP Rashed later accused Saadoun of “forgery” and filed the lawsuit against him.