Board of House of Representatives Holds Weekly Meeting on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020

The Board of the House of Representatives held its weekly meeting on Tuesday, June 23^rd, 2020, under the chairmanship of Speaker of House of Representatives Habib El Malki. The meeting tackled topics related to control and legislation.

Concerning control, the Board of the House reiterated its commendation of the efforts of deputies in controlling the Government action, following the mechanism put in place by the Board after consultation and coordination with the various bodies of the House and the Government. The main outcomes of the said mechanism are the close relation of the discussed topics to the issue of the pandemic, its developments on the ground, and its economic, social, humanitarian, security, and health-related repercussions. In this respect, the weekly programmed themes were related to a Ministry under the format of questions followed by a debate. This measure has proven its efficiency and timeliness in following up with citizens' concerns.

As part of evaluating the first phase and the lessons learned from practice, the House's Board has decided, as part of the preventive measures it implemented, to schedule three ministries per week to broaden the scope of Government participation in each sitting, and the ability to tackle more current issues each week.

In this respect, the House's Board set the agenda of the next weekly plenary sitting to include three departments. These are the departments of National Territory Development, Urban Planning, Housing, and Urban Policy; Culture, Youth, and Sports; and Solidarity, Social development, Equality, and Family.

Besides, the Board discussed the implementation of the provisions of Article 152 of the Rules of Procedure. To this end, it has set the start of this project on July 6^th. The participants reiterated and stressed the project's importance to follow up with the current and urgent issues that require clarification from the Government.

Also, regarding control, the Board discussed the exploratory missions it has previously agreed to create under the conditions laid down in the Rules of Procedure. It also discussed the deadlines for the submission of the reports of these missions, taking into account its previous decisions, the sanitary lockdown and the precautionary measures that accompanied it, and the resulting reconsideration of the existing timetable and provision of an additional period to fulfill the legal procedure regulating this control action. The decisions on the matter will be taken on Tuesday, July 7^th.

Regarding legislation, the Board reviewed the committees' legislative agenda, stressing the need to concert efforts in programming the parliamentary and Government bills referred to the committees, considering their extreme importance in formulating effective responses to many social, economic, and humanitarian needs.

In addition, the Board reviewed a parliamentary bill on the civil registry and referred it to the Internal Affairs, Communes, Housing, and Urban Policy Committee. The Board also referred to the Finance and Economic Development Committee a parliamentary bill amending and supplementing the Civil Pensions Act.

As part of a referral by the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council at its own initiative, the Board received the Council's opinion concerning Government bill 72.18 on the system of targeting the beneficiaries of social support programs and the establishment of the National Register Agency.

With regard to the record of the activities of the House for the last and ongoing weeks, the Board reviewed the various legislative and control issues examined by the standing committees, such as the Internal Affairs, Communes, Housing, and Urban Policy Committee; the Productive Sectors Committee; the Public Finance Control Committee; the Social Sectors Committee; and the Education, Culture, and Communication Committee. The committees' meetings examined several laws and tackled various control-related topics.

As regards the preparations for the examination of the Amending Finance Bill in await for its referral to the Board of the House of Representatives, the House's Speaker confirmed that he is pursuing his consultations with the House organs, as part of participatory action, to set the agenda of the House and organize its works.