Deputy Minister of Labor Dr. Mufraj Al-Haqbani (center) addresses a press conference in Riyadh yesterday. — SPA
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has given foreign workers another four months to obtain legal status in the country a day before a previous three-month amnesty expired, bringing respite to hundreds of thousands of expatriates who fear deportation.
Foreigners who do a different job to the one listed on their residence permit, will now have until the end of the Islamic year on November 3 to resolve their status, Saudi official media reported yesterday citing an Interior Ministry statement.
The embassies of Asian countries from which most of the workers hail welcomed the extension. India’s embassy in Riyadh described the extension as a “humanitarian” gesture, urging its citizens in the kingdom “to fully utilise the grace period effectively”.
Deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy Sibi George said that he hoped “that the grace will be enough” for Indians working in Saudi Arabia to regularise their status or leave.
Mohammed Nazmul Islam, consul general of Bangladesh in Jeddah, also welcomed the amnesty, saying many of his compatriots “who decide to go back... would search for a new company, a new sponsor” to stay in Saudi Arabia.
Foreign workers must have a Saudi sponsor in order to obtain residency permits.
According to the labour ministry more than 1.5 million illegal foreign workers have come forward so far. Of these, some 180,000 have left the kingdom in addition to more than 200,000 unregistered workers expelled at the start of the year under new regulations to stamp out illegal immigration.
Rules mainly impact low-paid workers, most of whom are from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, but with some from Yemen and Egypt as well. They had been fearful of the campaign of arrests promised by authorities once the amnesty expires.
“They might have deported me. This is the situation for so many of us. I was very worried. We didn’t know what would happen on Wednesday (when the deadline expired),” said a Pakistani working as a receptionist for a company in Riyadh.
“Maybe 30-35 percent of our staff are correctly registered. I have 10 people under the sponsorship of our company, of whom six are Saudis. So technically we’ve met our quota. But there are 12 others who are employed from outside,” said an office manager in Riyadh. “If they hadn’t extended I would have had to ask many of our staff to work from home from tomorrow or to stop working temporarily until we could resolve the problem,” he added.
The sudden announcement of a three-month amnesty in April led to massive queues outside government offices and the consulates of labour exporting countries as offices were flooded with hundreds of thousands of requests.
Reuters/AFP
