DOHA: Some private companies are manipulating their employee rosters by including names of Qataris who are not their staffers to show compliance with the state’s job quota requirement for nationals.
Such practices are rampant in the private sector and the issue is being hotly discussed in the Qatari community, local Arabic daily Al Arab reported yesterday.
Last year the then labour minister didn’t deny the accusations but said the practice was not rampant. He said that to check the practice, the ministry had drawn up a plan to ask the companies to provide their employee rosters with minute details.
What jobs the Qatari employees are in, what kind of training has been provided to them and what their pay scales are, are details the ministry would insist from these companies. The plan would apply to companies that were targeted in the government’s job nationalisation drive, the daily said.
Contacted, a top Qatari corporate executive said he was hearing this for the first time. He said companies that were mainly targeted by the state in its job nationalisation drive were listed.
“It is wrong to expect that listed companies would ever manipulate their employee rosters,” said Nasser Al Khaledi, CEO of Qatar-Oman Investment Company. “They would never furnish bogus details.” He said it was possible some family-owned businesses might be resorting to such practices when denied visas to recruit foreign workers.
“So you can’t blame them. When put this (meeting jobs quota requirement for citizens) as a condition for issuing companies visas to hire workers, they might be forced to manipulate their staff roster.” So some firms might include the names of some of their owners’ relatives in their employee rosters and show the government they indeed have Qatari staffers.
“Realistically speaking, you can’t expect a family-owned company to employ Qataris and increase their salary overheads,” said Al Khaledi. One can’t expect family-owned firms to match the government’s pay scales and perks for its Qatari employees.
Citing a report, Al Arab said banks, hotels, insurance providers and industrial firms were among those that showed increasing compliance with the jobs quota diktat of the government.
The Chairman of the Central Municipal Council, Saud Al Hanzab, told the daily the State Cabinet should address this issue.
Private firms do not want to pay higher wages as they are only concerned with profit-making, he said. “They must be reined in.”
The daily said private firms mention in their advertisements for jobs that “preference” would be given to Qataris but that’s only for show. The Peninsula
