Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — The Labor Ministry is considering to fix the minimum wage for Saudis in the private sector at SR5,300 and for expatriates at SR2,500.
The decision will be implemented in 2015 when the third and final phase of the wage protection program is over, local Arabic daily Al-Jazirah reported on Tuesday quoting informed labor market sources.
The second phase of the program started in March and was applied on companies with 1,000 workers or more. Under the program, all private sector companies and establishments should transfer the salaries of their Saudi and non-Saudi employees directly to their bank accounts.
The sources said the fixing of minimum wages was aimed at attracting more Saudis to the private sector, boost the process of job nationalization and end the fake Saudization which some private establishments resort to so as to remain in the green Nitaqat zone.
They said the ministry will electronically follow up to make sure that companies are committed to the minimum wages for both Saudis and expatriates and that they are not delaying salary payments.
According to Mansour Al-Shethry, chairman of the Saudi Labor Market Committee, a total of 1,600,070 Saudis are currently employed by the private sector. “They outnumber the citizens working for the government by about 500,000,” he said.
Al-Shethry said the the salaries of the Saudis employed in the private sector are less than those of the expatriates.
A recent study, conducted by the World Bank and the Ministry of National Economy and Planning said the salaries of the Saudis employed by the private sector are less than those of their counterparts in other GCC countries.
The study also said the salaries of the Saudi men are more than the women by about 20 percent for the same job.
GCC-wide ban for deported expats
DUBAI Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries have started applying a law that bans expatriates deported from any of the six countries from entering the rest of them, according to Manafez Dubai, the official newsletter of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs Dubai (GDRFA).
A report in its September issue of the newsletter said the new law is based on the GCC security pact. "Moreover, the country which deports an expatriate will be allowed to take the deportee's fingerprints and share the information with the rest of the GCC countries," it said.
It said the GCC countries are coordinating efforts to control drugs with exchanges of information, including names of smugglers, their modus operandi and data.
Case to case
O.V. Musthafa Zafeer of Musthafa & Almana International Legal Consultants said: "The GCC-wide entry ban for deported expats is not automatic, except in drug-related cases. Otherwise, it is applied on a case-to-case basis."
Tina Thapar of Al Midfa & Associates said: "The security pact of 1994 was amended in 2012 and thereafter implemented for major crimes such as drugs, money laundering, murder etc."
Citing some cases, she said a man implicated in a drug case in Saudi Arabia was deported from the UAE without a trial based on the judgment issued by the Saudi court. Another man in South Africa, who defaulted on alimony in the UAE, wanted to relocate to Bahrain. He had read about the GCC law, so he found out if there was an arrest warrant against him in the UAE and got his name cleared before flying to Bahrain.
© Gulf News 2014
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