JEDDAH, 30 January 2008 — Government employees and pensioners will receive the five percent salary increase which was announced by Monday’s Cabinet meeting. The increase will take effect from the month of Muharram, said Mohammad Al-Abdani, assistant deputy minister for budget and organizational affairs. The Cabinet announced the five percent inflation allowance as part of a 17-point program to alleviate the difficulties of Saudis and expatriates caused by growing prices of essential commodities and rising inflation across the Kingdom. Speaking about the Cabinet decisions, Saud Hashim Julaidan, an economist, said the inflation allowance would benefit more than 50 percent of Saudi families. He said there were 1.2 million government employees including those in the military.
The measures to contain prices also include a 50 percent cut in some government service charges. Accordingly, the charge for issuing passports will be cut from SR300 to SR150 annually, for transferring vehicle ownership from SR150 to SR75 and renewing resident permits of domestic servants from SR600 to SR300.
The charge for renewing the vehicle license for ordinary cars will be reduced from SR300 to SR150, rent-a-cars from SR400 to SR200, pickup vans from SR750 to SR375 and trucks from SR1,100 to SR550, said Col. Ahmed Al-Otaibi, traffic director in Makkah. “We’ll implement the reduced charges after receiving instructions from the concerned authorities,” Otaibi said.
Referring to the Cabinet decision to cut port charges by 50 percent for three years, Hamdi Abuzaid, a Shoura Council member, said the move would help reduce prices of essential commodities considerably. Annual revenues of the Saudi Ports Authority are estimated at SR2.5 billion.
However, Abuzaid insisted that a strict monitoring regime should be applied to make sure traders charge reasonable prices. He said the 10 percent increase in social insurance allocations would help a large number of poor people in the country. At present 532,000 Saudi families receive social insurance allowance.
Social Affairs Minister Abdul Mohsen Al-Akkas said the 10 percent increase in social insurance would be distributed from next month. He estimated the total amount of social insurance payment at about SR830 million monthly. “All citizens including those with limited income will benefit from the Cabinet decisions,” the minister said. Dr. Talal Bakri, also a Shoura member, said: “The combined effect of the 17 measures adopted by the Cabinet will be tremendous.” He called upon the authorities to implement the Cabinet decisions without delay. According to one economic expert, the new measures adopted by the Cabinet will increase citizens’ revenues by 15 percent.
The Cabinet called for speeding up implementation of health insurance for Saudis and for the reduction in the prices of medicines in order to reduce financial burdens.
Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie said his ministry had already taken steps to reduce the prices of 1,400 medicines from Feb. 8, adding that they included medicines for treating diabetes, blood pressure and heart diseases as well as many antibiotics.
Dr. Abdul Ilah Saaty, acting chairman of the cooperative insurance committee at the Health Ministry, said he expected the health insurance scheme would be implemented for Saudis this year. “The reason for not implementing the scheme for Saudis was a lack of insurance companies. Now we have about 45 companies in the market and 25 of them have received licenses,” he said.
