Expat Representatives Stopped from Processing Official Papers
JEDDAH — The municipality has prevented expatriate representatives of private organizations from processing office papers and ordered its departments and branches to implement its decision.
“No office papers concerning engineering offices, corporate or individuals should be processed by non-Saudis,” the municipality said in a circular to all branch municipalities in the city.
According to Makkah on Monday, the municipality has threatened all branch municipalities with harsh punishments if a non-Saudi is caught processing any work papers.
Hani Aburas, Jeddah mayor, said the decision was part of higher directives aimed at nationalizing jobs in the private sector and increasing the rate of Saudization.
According to informed sources, the municipality noticed some of its departments and branch municipalities were still accepting and dealing with non-Saudi representatives of private sector establishments, violating a long-standing order.
The municipality has also asked all shop owners to place its emblem in their signboards.
A number of shop owners on Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Street (Tahlia Street) said the municipality obliged them to change their old signboards so its emblem was included on the replacements.
Khazim Abdul Rahman, owner of a shop selling cheap commodities, said the municipality also ordered them to place new garbage bins and fined shops who refused to do so.
He said teams from the municipality came to his shop and asked him to pay a fine for not including the municipality’s emblem on its sign stating the name of his business.
Abdul Rahman Mishal, another shop owner, was surprised the municipality did not ask them to do everything in one go.
He said he was fined once for not including the municipality’s emblem on the sign and another time because the size of the sign was too big and had to be reduced.
“I changed the signboard three times, costing me more than SR2,500,” he added.
A salesman said the municipality’s teams told him these measures would be applied to all shops eventually.