The Ministry of Labor has recently called upon citizens to check whether their names have been registered in a company without their knowledge. The move comes to end the practice of faking Saudization and impose penalties on violators. Although a good move, it can only be effective if the ministry compensates the citizens whose names have been used for year without their knowledge. Today, many companies continue to use the ID numbers of citizens, male and female, as well as the disabled without their prior knowledge. These companies seek to circumvent the Saudization laws. Unfortunately, the ministry still treats these cases as pure violations of the law, not as a crime with a premeditated intention. In fact, it is a crime to use somebody's name for your own benefit without him knowing about it. By doing so, you are depriving this person of his rights to Hafiz Benefit Program, social aid, etc. Currently, the ministry penalizes the citizen who reports a fake Saudization case involving him without his knowledge. Say if someone discovers that his name has been registered by a company in the General Organization of Social Affairs without his knowledge and he contacts GOSI and asks them to cancel his subscription because in reality he has not been working for the company, this person will be penalized by the ministry. This is not right. This is tantamount to encouraging citizens, who fall victims to these companies, not to report a fake Saudization cases and to go straight to the company and try to negotiate a compensation package on condition that he does not report the case to the ministry. The Nitaqat Program has proved to be ineffective in encouraging Saudization. All it did was bring about a simulated decrease in unemployment rates and the number of Hafiz subscribers, thanks to fake Saudization. The program failed to deal with Saudization requirements and select the jobs that should be Saudized instead of Saudizing all jobs, even those that cannot be Saudized unless deceitfully, through fake Saudization. For example, many women were registered in GOSI as workers at stations and bakeries and many men as construction workers and bakery workers. The matter of the fact is many companies were paying Saudis salaries without really employing them; they used them as a cover for Saudization. In reality, unemployment rate has not decreased. The only solution to fake Saudizaton cases is to give the victims the right to demand that the companies, which used their names without knowledge, should pay them actual salaries for the period during which their names were used. These companies used the citizens' names to apply for recruitment visas and get a lot of benefits. If the ministry takes this step, it will put an end to fake Saudization cases. The laws and regulations encouraging Saudization should be realistic and take into consideration the academic qualifications of most unemployed people.
