AN American tourist checked in at a hotel and paid the reception $100 as a security deposit for a room. The tourist went up to check the room and decide if it was clean. During this time, the receptionist used the security deposit to buy some food from a grocery shop near the hotel. The shopkeeper used the same $100 to buy vegetables from a farmer and the farmer used it to pay for fertilizer for his farm. The company selling the fertilizer gave the $100 to one of its managers who proved to be corrupt. This manager gave the $100 to a prostitute and the prostitute paid the same hotel for a one-night stay. Just when the prostitute had checked out, the American tourist went down and dashed towards the receptionist and said, “Your elevator broke down while I was in it. I will never stay in your hotel. Give me back the security deposit.” He took it and left. Do you know where the $100 went? Did you notice how the $100 was used for different services? There is a similar story that happens frequently in our country. Five men are sitting together in a circle, chit chatting. One of them pulls out a SR100 note and buys something from the man next to him.
The latter gives the money to the third man in the circle and buys from him something to give it to his wife as a gift. The third one gives it to the fourth man to buy a gift for his family. The fourth man gives it to the fifth, who gives it to the first to buy a commodity from him. As you will have noticed, the SR100 note passed among five people. The larger the amount circulated, the huger the benefits are. This type of circulation will allow our society to be richer than Norway and Luxembourg. But what would happen if someone were to break this circulation? For example, what if the third man transferred the money to another country? In this case, the national economy would be affected and citizens would have to pull out another SR100 to circulate. This is a never-ending problem in our country where citizens put SR100 in the market and this “third man” transfers the money to his country and deprives the rest from circulating the money. This SR100 increases over the years and might reach SR3 to 4 billion. Is this not happening in our country? Money, not oil, has become our greatest export. In each society, people exchange utilities and money grows and grows because it is circulated within the same circle. But if some people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Lanka, etc. transfer a part of the money to their countries, the circle will be disrupted and the purchasing power will be affected. Socialist systems were aware of the economic depletion resulting from remittances and imposed restrictions on transfers. The Kingdom is one of the major countries opening the doors to money transfers. In fact, it was the first Gulf country that applied for the free transfer system in 1961. Each year, the World Bank announces a list of countries with the largest money remittances. The Kingdom always ranks second while the US ranks first. If we compare the US population to ours, we will see a huge difference. Remittances do not have a big impact on the US economy as it does in our economy. I am not saying the authorities should impose restrictions on the freedom of transfers. We should have regulations in place to reduce the rate of money transfers, raise the costs of employing an expatriate worker, and make Saudi employees the No. 1 choice for all employers. I wonder if the Ministry of Labor knows that if it allows expatriate workers to bring over their wives and children, it will make them have no choice but to spend 90 percent of their income in the Kingdom.
