RIYADH, 24 April — The Interior Ministry has ordered 14 Saudi businessmen to pay fines totaling SR1 million for employing overstaying expatriate laborers. The penal measures included cancellation of commercial registration and business licenses, closure of their business establishments and a five-year ban on business activity.
Interior Minister Prince Naif has approved the penalties recommended by the Ministry of Commerce. Most of the violators worked in the retail catering. Among the 14 Saudis who employed overstayers or provided refuge to them, one Riyadh businessman was fined SR200,000 while a Turkish national he employed at a restaurant will have to pay SR100,000.
A fine of SR100,000 was imposed on another Saudi who employed a Yemeni overstayer in a Tabuk restaurant. Yet another businessman in Riyadh was fined SR40,000 for protecting two Jordanians in an interior decoration shop. The two Jordanians will have to pay SR50,000 as fine. A Pakistani overstayer in Jeddah, who was caught working with his Saudi employer in his consumer goods store, was fined SR30,000. His employer will have to pay a similar amount.
In the Eastern Province, police and Passport Department officers arrested 120 expatriate laborers who violated residence and labor regulations. The arrests were made in surprise checks in markets, industrial zone and commercial establishments, said Cap. Ali Al-Lowaimi, a Passport Department official.
Cap. Salem Al-Qahtani, director of the expatriate monitoring department in Hafr Al-Baten, said 401 foreigners were arrested by his men in one month for violating residence and labor regulations. The workers were caught during patrols and raids carried out with the aim of rounding up illegal immigrants who were allegedly behind many social problems in the area.
In the southern part of the Kingdom, young Yemenis are said to be infiltrating villages and towns in the border regions with the aim of begging. Two juvenile beggars confessed that they were helped by their relatives to cross the Saudi border unnoticed by the border guards.
