JEDDAH: Abdullah Bin Mahfoudh, Chairman of the Prisoner Care Committee in the Jeddah Region, has said that some 63,000 Saudis could face prison over the next two years for failing to pay back debts. Bin Mahfoudh told Al-Hayat Arabic daily that Saudi individuals have racked up some SR3 billion in owed monies. “None of them are able to pay the debts back, according to information from SIMAH,” he said, in reference to the Saudi Credit Bureau, a body providing consumer and commercial credit information services in the Kingdom and operating under the supervision of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA). Bin Mahfoudh said that his committee has asked the Shoura Council to study the issue “in view of the threat it poses”. “In accordance with well-known regulatory measures, the next two years will see the legal pursuit of these massive numbers through civil rights processes, and the choice for all involved will be to pay up or go to prison,” he said. Bin Mahfoudh said that most of the debts were taken on when the stock market collapsed, while considerable sums were also loaned out for trade, consumer, and industrial purposes. “Consumer loans alone account for around SR100 billion (of debt),” he said. “The committee has made a number of proposals to resolve the issue of loan debts, most of which are with banks and car companies. We have suggested working with the banks and car companies to use some of the Zakat money they pay for the release of persons imprisoned over debt.” Bin Mahfoudh added that a decision from Prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, to exempt the 300 foreign women in Jeddah prisons from the remainder of their sentences would help to reduce overcrowding in the region's detention centers. “Many of them have been incarcerated for offenses against public morality and forgery, with some of them sentenced to up to three years,” Bin Mahfoudh said. “We feel that they can be released, particularly given that their large number is increased by the fact that all of them have with them at least one child, and sometimes two.” Prince Naif's decision, he said, means that the women will be released early and deported, with their fingerprints taken to ensure they are not able to reenter the Kingdom.
