Mahmoud Ahmad The deadline for rectifying status without paying fines or facing penal actions is over and people all over the Kingdom and those following Saudi affairs are watching closely how the government will react after the amnesty period given to expatriates to rectify their status. The very first day after the amnesty showed how deep and disorganized the work market in Saudi Arabia is. Many stores decided to close shop because the status of their workers had not been rectified. Many Saudis who had been hiring expatriates not under their sponsorship placed a sign announcing that they wanted to sell their business. And these have caused many hardships that visited residents. It has been, indeed, chaotic. Some Saudis and expatriates thought that the government was bluffing and another extension would be granted. It turned out that it was not. It has been shown from day one that the government is determined to organize the market and that those who did not take advantage of the period granted would pay the price. I will say here that the government has every right to do what it sees fit to ensure the stability of the domestic labor front and to organize the market in a way that it protects the government, citizens and the dignity and rights of expatriates working here. There is no question about it. However, there are points to consider here. Who has paid the price at the end? Again, I say the period given to rectify the status was not enough for the passport department to carry out the procedures. This was evident during the last days of the grace period when even a number of foreign diplomats petitioned the Foreign Ministry to intercede on their behalf to consider yet another extension. It was a short period of time to fix the damages done for many years. Expatriates, like I said many times and I say again, had nothing to do with the mess that we have in the job market. With the exception to those who had decided to overstay after Haj or Umrah, expatriates holding legal iqamas found themselves in situations where they work with one Saudi while their sponsorship is with another. They had then to adapt to the situation to make a living. It was us from the beginning who created this mess. We recruited people from abroad using companies that only existed on paper to force the workers into the market and fend for themselves and also make money for their sponsors. The raid against the undocumented workers, however, hit the common man hard. We have seen how cleaning workers in Madinah and Makkah went on strike for two days simply because the contracting company did not issue iqamas for them. According to reports, the contracting company was stalling the workers in giving them iqamas. As a result, the passport department detained four cleaning workers and the rest went on strike leaving the city of the Prophet (peace be upon him) dirty for two days. Residents of Madinah said they had never seen such garbage on the street that posed serious health risks to the city dwellers. The question to be asked is why is the contracting company stalling? They were given time to rectify the workers' status, unless the time given was too little for them to regularize their workforce. There was also news reports that 60 percent of water truck drivers left their work because they did not have iqamas to work as drivers. Who is going to suffer? The common citizen and expatriates, who are generally served by these trucks due to lack of water in their areas. There is a clip circulating on YouTube of a Saudi citizen at the water distribution center watching the last water truck leaving him and hundreds of others waiting in an empty yard. The man was shouting where are the Saudis? The people were also complaining that shops providing important services were shut down because they could not correct the status of their workers. People found difficulty finding bread as bakeries sans workers shut down. Some cafeterias, too, shut down. There was a funny story of a Saudi who showed up at work wearing a thobe that was not ironed and no head gear because the dry cleaning shops in his neighborhood closed shop before he could take his clothes. His problem is the least of our concern at this moment, but it does provide comic relief to a situation that's getting serious by the hour. With a number of important services provided by these shops and businesses, the government needs to show some leniency toward the employees of these shops because they are providing essential services to the public. The citizen and expatriates should not pay the price by being without these services — either they are shut down completely or temporarily suspended their services. Bus drivers transporting students suspended their services and many students did not go to school. It's the same with private schools that had to shut down because there are no teachers. The government should look seriously into these issues and consider abolishing the sponsorship system because it is the reason why we are in this mess in the first place. Instead, the government could provide work permit that is renewable even in one or two years with the government sponsoring the worker. The permit should be renewed only when the worker is able to provide a contract to prove he is working. There might be some more ideas from experts, but this could be one of the ideas that might be considered to solve the problem. – Mahmoud Ahmad can be contacted at [email protected]
