RIYADH, 2 August — Non-availability of Saudi applicants has made a major Saudi public undertaking to appoint 30 Indian and Pakistani engineers locally.
The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) is currently processing documents for the transfer of sponsorship of 14 Indian and Pakistani engineers and technicians from private companies. Their names have been entered in the workers’ register since June. They are the first batch of workers being transferred to the sponsorship of the corporation. A second batch will follow after the formalities of the first are completed.
"Recruitment of foreign hands is limited to specialized technical jobs for which Saudis are hardly available. The concerned authorities’ approval has been obtained for the move," said Khaled Al-Maneefi, public relations director at SWCC.
Al-Maneefi said the vacancies were repeatedly advertised in Saudi newspapers in order to attract Saudi engineers but nobody turned up.
"Since Saudi graduates are fully qualified to substitute foreign hands, SWCC needs to seek non-Saudi employees only on very rare occasions," he said. "The company was compelled to recruit the foreign workers as a last resort and in the best interests of the public as the corporation needed them to commission new projects without delay. The corporation has recruited experienced engineers and technicians who have been working with private contractors in the pipeline maintenance sector in the Kingdom," he added.
The corporation had to resort to this move following the failure of a recruitment committee which toured India, Pakistan and the Philippines to hire sufficient numbers of skilled hands," the official said. The subsequent local recruitment saved the corporation valuable time.
However, Al-Maneefi denied any link between the recruitment of the workers and the delay in the payment of allowances to many Saudi workers of SWCC. "We hope that the corporation will resume payment of allowances shortly", he said.
SWCC advertised in an Indian newspaper for recruiting 79 Indian workers in March last year. The company justified this move, which was apparently against the government’s Saudization policy, at the time contending that the corporation had no other course to get skilled workers as it could not find any Saudis for the task.
