JEDDAH, 11 May 2005 — Recently many government employees have been leaving work to deal on the booming stock market, Al-Madinah reports. Their absence has caused delays in paperwork and completion of documents. Employees are concentrating on the stock market instead of their work. What is worse is that there is no supervision. Instead of teachers monitoring their students, they bring their laptops into the class in order to follow the stock market. The only news that is circulating is which stock is rising and which stock is falling.
In the past when government employees arrived in the office, they first had their breakfast, discussed various problems and football matches and then began their work. These days, however, things are very different. The first thing they do — even before breakfast — is to log on to the Internet to see what is happening on the stock market. If things are fine, they buy and sell normally. If, on the other hand, things are not as they would like, they leave the office and go to the stock exchange to see for themselves what is going on.
Three years ago, some 50,000 Saudis had any dealings with the stock market. Nowadays, more than nine million — more than 50 percent of the Saudi population — play the market. In 2002, the market indicator was 2000 which increased to 3300 by the end of the war in Iraq. Since then, the market has completely changed and the indicator has soared to 11,000 because of the rise in the price of oil and bank dividends. The huge importance of the stock exchange was seen in the first week of the Albilad stock offering. The value of the stock increased to SR950 and people bought and sold very quickly in order to earn a quick profit.
The productivity of government employees has declined because many employees are trying to leave work in order to buy and sell stocks or because they are too busy keeping up with stocks on the Internet. Most economists say that government employees are spending a great deal of time on stocks and a great deal of time with their families; work comes in a poor third with far less time being spent on it. This has led for calls that the timings of the stock market should be from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and that it should be closed on Thursday.
This does not excuse supervisors for failing to do their jobs properly. The lack of supervision is the reason many government employees focus on their personal interests rather than their jobs. Some have said that the employees should be forced to make a choice. First, they must do their jobs conscientiously and play the stock market only in their spare time. Secondly, if they are unwilling to do that, they should leave their jobs, turning them over to unemployed Saudi youths who are searching for employment.
There have also been suggestions of banning the Internet from government offices which would no doubt force employees to concentrate on their jobs. Government employees themselves say their playing the stock market is simply a way to increase their income. They said that the stock market does not really affect their work since they all spend work time going to hospitals, having their cars repaired and taking their children to and from school.
