LOCAL VIEWPOINT

By Abid Khazendar

Al-Riyadh newspaper

 

Makkah Emir Prince Khalid Al-Faisal recently stressed the need to rectify the imbalance in the recruitment of Saudi engineers for development projects. “While Saudi engineers are looking for jobs, thousands of non-Saudi engineers are working in the hundreds of projects being implemented in the country,” he said.



The prince also questioned the large number of expatriate engineers and supervisors employed by big contracting companies, and wanted to know how many Saudi engineers were employed to supervise the more than 500,000 workers in the province.



He also expressed dissatisfaction at the low number of Saudi engineers supervising government projects. He rejected claims by the municipalities that there is a shortage of Saudi engineers.



The anti-corruption body has recently revealed massive discrepancies in implementing government projects that led to losses running into billions of riyals. One explanation given was the absence of Saudis to supervise such projects which are run primarily by expatriates, some of whom lack the necessary skills and qualifications. 

There is no truth in claims about the limited availability of Saudi engineers and the need to recruit foreign engineers.



On the contrary, Saudis graduate in large numbers each year in different specializations from universities within the Kingdom and abroad.