Saleh Al-Turigee

Okaz

In the year 1432 AH, the issue of housing allowance for government employees was tabled as a recommendation in the Shoura Council. After heated discussions, the council decided to withdraw the recommendation from its agenda on the ground that the study was weak and devoid of credible statistics.



As a matter of fact, the issue does not need figures or data. It is simply a right provided to employees of the private sector which their colleagues in the government sector remain deprived of.



In the beginning of 1434 AH and before the end of its last session, the Shoura Council reviewed the subject. The chairman of the council’s administrative and human resources committee, Dr. Mohammed Al-Naji, said his committee would not ignore the recommendation to pay housing allowance to government employees.



He tempered hopes, however, by adding: “We do not want to anticipate things or raise the ceiling of expectations.”



In the council’s latest session, that same individual stated that the recommendation to pay government employees housing allowance ended with the conclusion of the previous council.



Mohammed Al-Quwaihis, the man who presented the recommendations to the council in the last session, said the Shoura Council’s system stipulates that a recommendation is abrogated with the termination of membership of the council member who has presented it. 



In other words, Dr. Al-Naji must pay his condolences to all government employees over the death of the housing allowance.



Apart from the demise of the housing allowance recommendation, it is obvious that there is an ambiguity in what Al-Naji had said about the system of the Shoura Council and his claims that any proposal will end with the termination of the membership of the member who has tabled it for discussion.



According to my quick review of the statutes of the Shoura Council, the system does not make any reference to the cancellation of proposals with the end of the tenure of the members who present them. New members should complete the work of their predecessors instead of starting from scratch in every session.



I hope that one of the new members would revive the housing allowance issue and would come up with a credible study replete with facts and figures.



I do not want the life story of the housing allowance to be repeated so that after four years the members will once again pay their condolences to government employees.