JEDDAH — A total of 65,000 clients at the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) were private sector employees receiving the Ministry of Social Affairs' social insurance even though they were not eligible for it. A ministry source said the government department and GOSI recently shared their databases, which revealed the discrepancy. The source said: “The organization's office was crowded on Monday with people protesting after the organization had disabled their social insurance from the system. Eighty-five percent of the 65,000 clients were women.” The source said the ministry discovered many of these women were employees with high salaries in banks, organizations and companies and also successful businesswomen. “The ministry does not really follow up with applicants of social insurance. These women were unemployed and unsupported when they first applied for the insurance and that is why they received it.” There is no system to track whether they found work or started their own business later on, he said. “The private sector does not require its employees to transfer their social insurance to the company account. “After sharing the databases the system at GOSI automatically disabled any ineligible account by cross-referencing the data of the ministry and the organizations.” The source added the system has disabled the social insurance of 5,000 clients in Jeddah on Monday. “There are 850,000 people in the Kingdom receiving the ministry's social insurance payments. The insurance includes a monthly salary depending on the size of the client's family and living conditions, annual bonuses and paid electricity bills.” He added the new cooperation will ensure that such discrepancies do not happen again and that the ministry's services and aid reach people who are genuinely in need.
