the kuwaiti work permits are ‘sold’ on the black market and the rates are as follows: an egyptian work permit fetches 1,500 dinars for ordinary worker and 2,000 dinars for a driver work permit; a work permit for an indian is sold for 1,900 for ordinary worker, 2,500 dinars if the occupation is driver; iranian, syrian and bangladeshi 3,500 dinars any job. the bulk of the commission goes to the broker, human trafficker or visa trader; whatever you may call them, and part of may go to the official processing the visa.
it may be seen that the number of the above mentioned nationalities increases unabated, and this means the visa trading gangs and corrupt people continue in their business and with it the imbalance in the demographics which helps aggravate the problem.
since majority of the people of the above nationalities are not highly qualified and we have a large number of qualified bedoun, the government can, if it wishes, eliminate the greed of human traffickers, adjust the demographics, improve the security and ethical situation within the state, and achieve several things through the implementation of one rational decision.
the government can establish a work center at the public authority of manpower (pam) to receive job applications from illegal residents, or bedoun who are registered with the central system for remedying the status of illegal residents (csrsir) and willing to work and look at their qualifications, past experience and feed this information in the system and put this information at the disposal of individuals and companies looking for trained or semi-trained workers.
the bedoun then shall be counted within the legal employment rate required from all companies and institutions after two years, more or less if they attend work in these companies regularly. however, pam has the right to reject any application for recruitment from any company as long as the company looking for an employee is found on the list of bedoun.
the implementation of this proposal will bring the following benefits: it will reduce congestion of the bedoun security and social situation, and greatly improve their financial situation by providing good job opportunities for many of them and improve the imbalance in demographics.
it will also help lessen the pressure on health, security, social services, road use, and other services. moreover, hiring them will eliminate the phenomenon of bribe (visa trading) and this means the criminals will not benefit any longer.
another advantage is that they do not need the usual procedure of medical and security checks unlike the expatriates and their employment will be fast and will not need to provide housing and transportation.
they will also not need long leaves to visit families, or presumably so. in addition to this the cost of hiring a bedoun will be much lower than hiring an expatriate, whom we know nothing about, nor to pay for a ticket. there is an opportunity to interview those wishing to work, and this is not available to others easily.
in short, anyone who opposes such proposal probably has own interests at heart and i do not claim it is a complete proposal, but may need to be seriously considered by the concerned authorities.
note: it so happened that i entered the jabriya police station and left with utmost happiness for the good treatment by the head of the outpost colonel nasser bader al-essa and captain hadi jawad al-qattan. i was also very pleased with the way visitors were treated by first lieutenants muhammad al-hudaibi and yousef al-najdi, and lieutenants zaid al-hujailan, and hussein.
i hope many like them work in our other outposts.