DAMMAM, 10 May — The Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry is in a quandary over the statement of its Vice President Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid concerning the Chamber’s help in the matter of iqama fee refunds. The chamber is likely to release an official statement on the issue on Saturday. Al-Rashid was not available for comment on his published interview.
Despite continually calling his office yesterday evening and the whole of today, his office at the Rashed Al-Rashed Group Headquarters has a standard reply: “Mr. Abdul Rahman is not in his office.”
A source in his head office said that Al-Rashed was upset over his statement published on Tuesday as he felt that he was quoted inaccurately. Chamber members and officials were surprised over the statement which appeared on Tuesday. Arab News tried to contact the Secretary-General of the chamber who expressed his complete ignorance on the issue and asked to contact media relations department where the official in charge again said that they have not seen the statement and are completely unaware of this development.
Interestingly, on the one hand Al-Rashid in his interview had given the telephone number of the Chamber of Commerce and asked people who wanted help to contact it. On the other hand, chamber officials who were supposed to give a helping hand did not know anything about it.
When Arab News tried to contact the chamber President Khaled A. Al-Zamil, his office said that a “statement will be issued on the subject from the chamber today.” However, no statement came.
The business community expressed its surprise over the statement of the vice president and, a member of the board of directors of the chamber said that his statement marks a clear shift from the basic duty of the chamber, which is to provide advice and help to its members.
Expatriates in general welcomed the statement but were frustrated when they reached chamber to seek help and were told that the officials themselves did not know what to do with their cases. One member of the chamber said that since the statement was published on Tuesday the telephone operator at the chamber has had a tough time in answering calls, as there were hundreds of inquiries about the issue.
“This iqama fee issue is being blown out of proportion. People are behaving as if they were not aware of such practices, whereas the fact remains that we all knew that many big, medium and small companies were forcing their employees to pay the fee,” said a member of the chamber board. “There are more important issues like payment of wages, end of service benefits, vacation and misuse of labor which should also be focused on,” he said.
