Saudi Gazette report RIYADH – A number of passport officers in Riyadh are being investigated for holding up thousands of transactions and prioritizing certain ones that they were allegedly paid bribes for during the first grace period, Al-Watan daily reported on Sunday. The officers' actions resulted in great delays to the processing of the transactions of hundreds of expatriate workers who wanted to modify their profession or correct their residency status, said a source. The Passport Directorate has a division that deals with violations and monitors the activities of all officers throughout the year. The source noted that every now and then such violations crop up and the responsible officers are investigated and given appropriate punishments in line with the type of violation committed. There have been reports of widespread corruption and abuse at passport offices across the Kingdom following the announcement of the grace period by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah giving illegal foreign workers a chance to rectify their status or leave the country without facing penal action. In May, an officer was recorded beating expatriate workers who had come to a passport center in Jeddah to have fingerprinted. There was a huge media outcry after the video appeared on social networking sites, prompting the National Society for Human Rights to call for an investigation. Meanwhile, the directorate said it would separate next year its department of expatriates' affairs, which will eventually come under the direct responsibility of the Ministry of Interior. A source said the department would be turned into an independent directorate administratively and financially. Having a separate directorate for expatriates' affairs will allow authorities to monitor the activities of all expatriates more closely and crack down on workers who do not comply with residency regulations and tend to work for different sponsors. The directorate announced recently that over 655,000 expatriate workers have left the country for good since the beginning of the first grace period, which started over four months ago.
