A member of the Shoura Council, who requested anonymity, expects a regulation abolishing the sponsorship system to be issued soon by the higher authorities. The regulation will rectify the relationship between the employer and expatriate employee, according to the viewpoint of the Ministry of Labor and not the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), Al-Madina said Saturday. The Shoura council member confirmed to Al-Madina that Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, Minister of Labor, said in one of the council's meetings that his ministry has referred its viewpoint on abolishing the sponsorship rules to higher authorities. He added that a regulation in this regard would be issued soon. He quoted Al-Gosaibi as saying in a closed-door meeting in the Shoura Council that his ministry was planning to establish certain companies that would organize workers and conclude contracts between employers and expatriate employees. In another development, Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar, Chairman of the NSHR, denied the existence of any coordination between the NSHR and the Ministry of Labor or any other department in preparing the study conducted by NSHR on “abolishing the rules of sponsorship and rectifying the relationship between the employer and expatriate employee”. He stressed that the Ministry of Labor is the authority concerned with arranging and organizing all that is related to this matter. Al-Hajjar said, “I don't know if the Ministry of Labor has conducted a study or not.” He said the society held a symposium a year ago titled “The rights of the citizen and the expatriate worker under the sponsorship arrangements”. The ministries of interior and labor were invited and the NSHR listened to the views of the two ministries besides those of the chambers of commerce and recruitment companies. Al-Hajjar said, “It is not necessary that the viewpoints coincided with those of the society. Each of them might have a certain viewpoint. However, the study the NSHR conducted represents the views of the society.” – Al
