Contradictions reign with 43 days left for expatriates

There are just 43 days left for expatriate employees, documented or not, to rectify their status. Yet contradictions continue to reign between what has been officially stated, what some officials say and what is actually happening on the ground.

May 21, 2013
Contradictions reign with 43 days left for expatriates
Contradictions reign with 43 days left for expatriates

Somayya Jabarti

 


Somayya Jabarti

Saudi Gazette

 


 


JEDDAH — There are just 43 days left for expatriate employees, documented or not, to rectify their status. Yet contradictions continue to reign between what has been officially stated, what some officials say and what is actually happening on the ground.



When asked whether there are any time-related preconditions required for all those seeking to modify their statuses, a Labor Ministry’s operator answering their 920001173 line for queries said: No.



The question was repeated for reassurance: “Are specific number of years required of any illegal resident in order for them to rectify their situation?”



The young lady at the other end of their ‘hotline’ repeated her “No”. In the meantime, on the wired fences surrounding the Abruq Al-Raghama Passports Department office are huge Arabic signs stating time prerequisites. The signs officially state that only those Umrah and Haj overstayers, who arrived in the Kingdom before 2008, can apply for status rectifications.



And if you walk maybe 15 feet away from these signs, the officer guarding the entrance is repeating to all inquirers: “You can only fix your situation if you’ve been here before 2008.”



“Do I believe you, the sign or the Labor Ministry?” a young Sudanese man asked the officer. “Don’t get me wrong,” continued the young man. “I am not calling you a liar but these contradictions are just compounding the confusion.”



“I’m also here to complain about my sponsor, he won’t transfer my sponsorship unless I pay him, and the Labor Office asked me to come here to the Passports Department.”



“No. Take your complaint to the Labor Ministry,” replied the overworked officer.



Abruq Al-Raghama’s Passports Department has been reported as the place to go for modifying your job status/title. Yet today the officer standing at the entrance turned people away telling them “come on Saturday as the system is down.”



In addition to the contradictions, the amnesty and other official policies are not in sync with the reality of ongoing and various scenarios. 



According to the Ministry of Labor, if the company sponsoring an expatriate employee is in the red or yellow categories in the Nitaqat system, the sponsorship transfer can be achieved without an NoC from the sponsor i.e. without the sponsor’s consent.



However with passports in the hands of sponsors many expatriates are unable to make the sponsorship transfers unless, as in many cases, they agree to pay the former thousands of riyals — what are they supposed to do?



“Time is short and running out on us,” said an Indonesian carpenter standing amid the crowds outside his consulate. The company he works for is in the red yet his sponsor continues to withhold his passport. They won’t give me my passport unless I pay them SR5,000. To submit a complaint to the Labor Office or the Passports Department will need time that I don’t have. I don’t have the money or the time. I just want to leave.”



Police officers outside the Indonesian Consulate tell you to be there at 8 a.m., while the crowds on the street tell you that you are already too late if you are not there at 5 a.m.



“I have been coming here at 5 a.m. for three consecutive days,” says a 32-year-old Indonesian woman sitting on the pavement right across the consulate’s main entrance, fanning her blood red face. “And still I’ve not managed to get in. I just want a new passport.”



Behind her a 3-year-old Indonesian boy is laid out on a plastic bag on the sidewalk, his mother fanning him with one arm while rocking a crying baby girl in her left. She along with her husband have been there since dawn.

Ten feet away from them another Indonesian woman assists a little girl whose undergarments have been removed — to squat down behind a pavement tree and relieve herself.



Patrol cars herd the crowds away from the consulate, their shrill sirens filling the air. As the flocks of people painstakingly cross over to sidewalks and ‘middle-walks’ facing the consulate, a young Arab man in the backseat of a car that was on a slow drive-by shouts out “Welcome to Saudi Arabia!”



A Saudi man, his face red and wet, tells an Indonesian housekeeper, “Now that you’ve finally got your new passport, we’ve to go get you fingerprinted at Abruq Al-Raghama.”



A Saudi woman corrected him as she walked past him. “Actually the fingerprinting is done at Dallah.”



He replied: “I was told Abruq Al-Raghama Passports Department. Even my brother’s housekeeper was fingerprinted there yesterday.”



The Saudi woman answered, “Brother, I just came from there and they told me the fingerprinting is now done in Dallah.”



“Jazakallah khair (May Allah repay you with goodness),” replied the Saudi. “How do they expect us to know these changes?”



A Saudi woman in her 30s, meanwhile, asked an officer “Where do I get the passport application form?”



Pointing to a mosque across the street, some 30 feet away, he replied: “At the end of the mosque but it’s closed now, come tomorrow.”



Her following questions, “Is there an office there? Is the form available online?” fell on deaf ears as the officer resumed his shouting at the crowds to move away.



The Saudi woman crosses the street toward the mosque, moving in and out of the stranded people on the sidewalk. Turning her head left and right she sees an Indonesian man with forms in his hands, leaning against the closed trunk of an old Cressida.



She asked, “English or Arabic?” He shakes his head to both languages. She continued, “Are these forms for passports? ‘Jawaz Safar’ (passport in Arabic)?”



Another Indonesian man standing beside him nodded his head. A form in his left hand, he lifts up five fingers with his free hand “Five riyals”. He shouts out “Khamsa” (five in Arabic) to make sure she has heard him over the screaming sirens and police officers’ explosive shouts at people and cars alike, their patrol cars’ loudspeakers renting the air with the singular command: “Harrek! Harrek! Harrek!” (Move! Move! Move!)



Yet amid the heat and pandemonium barely three feet away, seemingly unaffected by his surroundings, a Saudi man is bent over a worn out Indonesian woman cooling her face off with a damp cloth sitting on the sidewalk.



“So” he asked her “Will you come work for me?” She simply closed her eyes.


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