MP insists on summoning oil minister

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Tuesday is a fixed appointment to summon Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahrestani to appear before the parliament for questioning, lawmaker Jabir Khalifa Jabir said on Tuesday. He said that his Fadila Party bloc will demand to hold no-confidence vote over Shahrestani if he refused to attend the parliament session. “There are documents that condemn Shahrestani,” Jabir told IraqiNews.com news agency. He said that in case Shahrestani did not attend the session, it means that he gave up his constitutional right to defend himself. Jabir, the rapporteur of the parliament’s oil & gas committee, had revealed on October 18, 2009 that the Shahrestani questioning would center on the issue of failure to enact certain oil laws. Sheikh Sabah al-Saadi, the head of the anti-corruption board and a member of the same Fadila bloc, said that he had information and official documents proving immense financial and administrative corruption in the oil ministry. MH (P)/AmR 1