DAMMAM, 15 February 2004 — Confusion is the norm at the Labor Office and the Passports Department here because of misunderstandings about transfer of sponsorship and issuance of work visas.
For unexplained reasons, both offices have stopped issuing new work visas and transfer of sponsorship.
Eastern Province businessmen expressed exasperation and said such a situation was detrimental to business.
Yesterday hundreds of businessmen were at the Passports Department to receive work visas but not a single visa was issued.
Al-Madinah Arabic daily quoted sources at the Dammam Labor Office who said the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs had recently decided to stop issuing visas to foreign workers until further notice.
The government recently announced that by 2010 it would reduce the foreign work force by 50 percent and that no country would be allowed to have more than 10 percent of the total number of foreign workers in the Kingdom. Many businessmen feared that the visa suspension was related to this.
A source at the Passports Department in Dammam, however, denied that this was the case. Officials say that transfers of sponsorship have not been suspended and visas are being issued if the stipulated conditions are met.
According to a rough estimate, nearly seven percent of foreigners in the country are illegal or are unemployed. Businessmen in the Eastern Province expressed concern over the increasing number of unemployed foreigners in the country.
“This is absolutely illogical. The very presence of a foreign worker here should mean that he is doing a job. This situation will not only create an economic crisis but also law and order problems,” said Saeed Al-Ghamdi, a businessmen and former member of the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
Recruitment agencies in Dammam say that issuing visas might be temporarily suspended due to the recent decision not to issue visas to establishments having fewer than 10 workers.
