Khaled Al-Sulaiman Okaz The Ministry of Labor (MOL) boasts that its campaign has corrected the status of 5.3 million foreigners who were violating labor and residency regulations. This figure tells me that the Saudi labor market was a playground for violating foreigners who have dominated the market for decades in the absence of strict laws to control them. The paradox is that the campaign, which was organized mainly to correct the violations under the name of law, has itself broken the law. Allowing foreign workers to transfer their iqamas and annul their contracts with their original sponsors without compensating these sponsors for the recruitment costs is a gross violation of the labor law. The fact is the residency violators and the Saudis who concealed them were the real winners. The original sponsors who shelled out money to bring them from overseas gained nothing but injustice and disappointment. I also have a question to ask the ministry: If 5.3 million violating foreigners were able to correct their status, what is the exact number of expatriates who are legally living among us?
