The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmed Al-Nawaf, is expected to hold a meeting with the ministry’s assistant undersecretaries and general managers to discuss the new administrative structure and mechanisms to fill vacant senior positions and “demographic imbalances and ways to fix them.”
Al-Seyassah newspaper in an exclusive report — which was commissioned by the political leadership — and surrounded by the highest levels of secrecy made it clear that it includes an integrated vision and a long-term strategy to fix the imbalances in the demographics, pointing out that it includes innovative and unconventional solutions, as well as “strict” measures to get rid of visa trade and turn the page on marginal and bulk workers.
Reforming the demographic structure, the sources say, will be a top priority for the next government, stressing that the draft law that the government referred to the parliament and which was approved by the Interior and Defense Committee of the National Assembly on regulating the residence of foreigners will be an important and landmark step included in the reform, especially as it grants the Minister of Interior wide powers in this regard.
While confirming that the expected measures would constitute a break with the state of leniency and inaction that silenced the previous governments’ handling of the most serious issue, the sources revealed that the new package includes:
— Adopting the ‘ratio and proportionality’ rule in terms of expatriate workers of different nationalities
— Distancing the ministries of Health and Education from providing medical treatment or educational services to expatriates and their children, and directing them to the private sector
— Granting the green light to the Ministry of Interior to use the power of administrative deportation for any violator
— Reducing and prohibiting family visits for some nationalities
— Speed of appointing senior officials in an original capacity to take over the residency file
— Refer all those involved in the visa trade to court
— Imposing security restrictions on those who harbor violating workers and restrict their right to recruitment, regardless of whether they are a merchants, sheikhs, or influential people and even if the person is a minister of MP
— To stop the embassies of some Arab and foreign countries from interfering with the procedures that are taken in cases of deportation or seizure of violating workers
— Adopting an approach that requires reducing the number of new expats to the labor market compared to those leaving it, by a ratio of (1:5), meaning that 20 skilled technical workers can be allowed to enter the private sector if 100 leave
The sources pointed out that the confidential report warned of the continued laxity in dealing with the composition and the number of violating workers reaching more than 140,000, the aggravation of the visa trade file, and the tampering with the file of ‘need assessment’ by some Arab mandoubs working for private sector companies.