Perhaps the worst of these practices is business cover-up. Undoubtedly, most contracting establishments conceal people who get monthly or annual salaries, while foreigners run businesses.

I can assure you that occupations such as plumbers, mechanics, electricians, and maintenance engineers are all taken up by foreigners. Most of them have no legal residency document.

One would notice that the person one is dealing with is illegal if one requested an invoice and the person immediately refused to give it. However, we still give them jobs since we have no other option. The Ministry of Commerce recently said that it discovered 558 cases of cover-up businesses in the first half of this year, which means 5,000 cases have not yet been discovered.

The other prohibited practice we do is hiring of runaway maids. The proper channels of hiring maids are now closed. Besides, there is a ban on hiring Indonesian and Filipino maids who were our favorites. Our experience with maids of other nationalities, especially with Ethiopian ones, was not good. The monthly salaries of an Indonesian or a Filipino maid has reached SR1,500 and SR1,800 respectively.

Don’t ask me for a solution — there are authorities such as the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Labor who caused the problem and now have the responsibility of finding a solution.