Mazen Baterjee, vice chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Arab News that members of the Jeddah community will launch a private initiative to normalize the status of people who are in violation of residency regulations.
“The chamber launched this voluntary initiative in cooperation with various agencies in order to expedite the processing of normalization procedures for violators. We received encouragement from the governor of Jeddah, who instructed the various government agencies to cooperate with the initiative, which will be launched at the beginning of the month of Shaaban,” he said.
“We expect that the initiative will draw more than 1,200 young men to help in the processing work and we appeal to anyone who has time between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. to come and help,” he said.
He said: “The campaign will involve volunteers who will receive the ever-increasing number of applications to improve the processing capacity of government agencies. Each location will have around 25 to 140 volunteers in cooperation with the government agencies so that each government employee will run a team of five to 25 volunteers.”
“We will erect air-conditioned tents for the applicants and volunteers in each location under the supervision of the relevant government agency, like the Passport Department, Labor Bureau, and the consulates. We will secure parking lots and buses to transport the applicants to and from the locations. We will also serve beverages and provide translation assistance, when needed, especially at the embassies,” he said.
“In places where there are large numbers of applicants, like government agencies in general, we will provide around 140 volunteers in each location. Where the number is smaller, like embassies, we will provide 30 volunteers. We actually need 550 to 600 volunteers, although we expect that the initiative will draw up to 1,000 young men,” he said.
“We have contacted a number of consulates, including the Philippine, Indian and Bangladeshi consulates, who welcomed the idea and promised to cooperate, saying they need this kind of collective effort. We will keep working in case the deadline is extended. We have not calculated the total budget of the initiative yet, but the tents alone will cost more than SR 300,000,” he said.
