A recent report in the New York Times said a group of hotel companies and businessmen in the United States were preparing to sue the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) — equivalent to the Passports Department in the Kingdom — for causing them financial losses. Their losses are the result of the INS delaying the arrival of temporary workers in the US. The businessmen claim that the demand for workers, especially those working in temporary jobs, is usually high during the summer season and that the workers are needed to serve growing numbers of tourists and vacationers. The procedures followed by the INS, they allege, impede recruitment of workers and result in huge losses for the companies.
A few months ago one of our local papers published the results of a study. The study dealt with the productivity of a worker in the Saudi public sector. The productivity was low because the actual time spent at work was no more than 20 minutes per day. This is a situation that must be faced and dealt seriously with.
I would like to suggest a two-part plan that may be implemented in both the short and long terms to address the problem. First, we have to raise productivity from a mere 20 minutes to one full hour; by doing so, there will be a threefold increase in efficiency. This would definitely reflect positively on the overall performance of the government sector and reduce the suffering of those who have to deal with it. In the long term, the plan may be extended for 20 years with its ultimate target being to raise the productivity of government employee to a full eight hours per day. This will bring us to the same level of performance as such countries as Germany and Switzerland.
16 July 2002
