Fatima Muhammad
Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH – Business owners had a heated debate here on Wednesday with a Ministry of Labor official at a meeting called to discuss the amnesty period and the rush to correct the status of expat workers.
Attendees called for extending the grace period, complaining that they were not able to benefit from the amnesty as the actual implementation started only a month after the announcement.
Many businessmen complained about the way they were being treated by the Ministry of Labor.
Madawi Al-Hasson, a beauty salon owner, said that they want the ministry to respect them, and not to use words like “raid” and “bust.”
“We are not against the Ministry of Labor visits, but we need to be treated with dignity and respect, and not as criminals,” she said.
Al-Hasson said that they have urged the Ministry of Labor to allow wives and daughters of expatriates to work, but no promise in this regard has been given. She said that they want the clause “not allowed to work” deleted from iqamas of female dependents of expat workers.
“These women are qualified and we need them,” Al-Hasson said, adding that the Saudi women who work in beauty salons do not stay in jobs even if they are provided with decent salaries and manageable working hours.
Saeed Al-Bassam, the head of transport committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that they were struggling to find heavy vehicle drivers.
Saudis, he said, are not willing to work in this sector and the total number of them does not exceed 7%. They have contacted the Transport Ministry and called for providing more visas but have not received any answers yet, he said.
Meanwhile, a source at the Ministry of Labor told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the delay in upgrading the Saudization percentage was because of the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI).
According to GOSI regulations, only eight percent increase in Saudization percentage is calculated per week. So, as per this regulation, it will take 13 weeks for a firm to get 100 percent Saudization from the time it started employing Saudi nationals.
