RIYADH, 30 May 2005 — The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) has decided for the first time to extend social security and retirement benefits to all Saudi men and women employed in the Gulf states as part of a move to provide insurance coverage to citizens serving outside the country.
“The purpose of the scheme is to offer social insurance coverage for all working Saudi citizens in all GCC states,” said Soliman S. Al-Humayyid, GOSI governor.
He said, “The state will ask employers to contribute to the insurance or retirement scheme on behalf of the workers.”
Al-Humayyid said the scheme will be implemented next year without giving an exact date or other details.
The Council of Ministers has given its approval to the scheme. GOSI, which is supervised by an 11-member board of directors, is a semi-government agency responsible for issuing social insurance rules, collecting contributions from employers and paying benefits to insured persons or their families. The minister of labor is its chairman.
Expatriate workers in the Kingdom are also insured by GOSI but are not entitled to retirement benefits; they are compensated only in cases of death and occupational disabilities.
Al-Humayyid said GOSI has launched an online service package called the Social Insurance Management and Information System (SIMIS). Considered a distinguished shift in the field of e-government applications in the Middle East, SIMIS is designed to serve everyone who deals with GOSI’s various schemes.
The SIMIS allows government agencies to interact and exchange information with GOSI online in addition to enabling companies, establishments and employers to perform all their businesses online. The employers can now register and make payment of contributions online with the help of this e-system. They can review their GOSI accounts and make inquiries sitting in their office. Hospitals may check the coverage of injured workers with the GOSI’s Occupational Hazards Branch without visiting any field office.
The total number of establishments currently registered under the insurance scheme exceeds 106,000, while the number of contributors has reached 2.8 million.
