Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — A number of Saudi and expatriate employees in the private sector, who are registered in the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI), expressed their discontent about the GOSI reports that had salary discrepancies.



They said these reports contain imprecise information on their salaries according to the salary scale in the private sector, Al-Riyadh Arabic daily reported Saturday.



They confirmed that the salaries registered for male and female Saudi and non-Saudi employees in GOSI are lower than what they actually receive from the companies.



They said companies put conditions on employees that prevent them from registering the salaries they receive.



This has deprived them of their rights to get pension or suitable compensation in case of work injury or death.



Hussein Al-Sadadi, head of Saudization at the Human Resources Development Fund in the Eastern Province, attributed this to greed of company owners, who force employees —whether male or female Saudis or expatriates — to register in GOSI with lower salaries than what they are actually getting.



Sometimes the salaries registered in GOSI is half of the actual salaries the employees get so that the companies can evade paying GOSI contributions commensurate with actual salaries — especially for Saudi employees.



This is because the law stipulates that the employer pay 11 percent of the Saudi employee’s salary as the company’s share of the GOSI contribution.



Al-Sadadi confirmed that Saudi employees in the private sector are greatly harmed by this cut in payments, especially those working in the managerial posts. Their financial rights in future would be affected.



He said expatriate employees are not affected much in comparison to Saudi employees.



He said in case of death, an expatriate employee gets a financial compensation ranging from SR30,000 and SR50,000 from the insurance company. According to GOSI statistics, the number of male Saudis working in the private sector is 1,156,198 and female Saudis is 368,236.



The number of male expatriate workers in the private sector registered in the insurance system is 6,210,249 while the number female expatriates is 110,798.