Vegetable and Fruit Market in Baha

A majority of food stores in Baha are reportedly dominated by expatriate workers at a time when they are supposed to strictly adhere to the Saudization process.

It is now a common feature while visiting such stores. Once inside these shops, there is hardly a Saudi seen attending to the customers. Even Saudis owning the shops are nowhere to be seen.

Ahmad Al-Ouwaifi, chairman of the Baha Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said foreign workers constitute 90 percent of the commercial activity in the city. “They are involved in all commercial activities, including food store operations,” said Al-Ouwaifi.

He demanded the competent authorities should increasingly monitor such trends and to give Saudis the opportunity to work in groceries and other food establishments. He wanted the authorities to intensify their checks and bring to the fore the wrong doings in most of such shops.

Abdullah Al-Assi, a businessman, said concealing (coverup) labor is a phenomenon that is increasing due to the expansion of commercial, economic and service activities as well as due to the growth of villages and cities across the Kingdom.

“We call for the strict application of regulations to curb the malpractices,” he said and urged for intensive efforts for Saudizing all commercial activities, especially where concealment or coverup of labor is widely prevalent.

Economist Abdulkhaliq Ali said commercial cover-up is increasing more rapidly than before. “Its ongoing increases will harm the national economy and cause many security and social hazards, and will increase commercial cheating,” he explained. He noted that foreign workers have been largely marketing fake and counterfeited goods, which will increase unfair competition in the market.

“Labor cover-up operations attract human and financial resources without serving the national economic goals of the country and people. Profits and yields will automatically go to expats who, in turn, transfer the money abroad denying the national economy of any incomes or revenues,” he added.

The economist said covering up for labor will deny Saudi nationals the opportunity to land a job, and lead to illegally crowding out Saudi businessmen of their businesses, thereby increasing unemployment rates and monopolizing some of the commercial activities.”

About 80 percent of the casual labor is under the sponsorship of fake institutions,” he said.

He warned against this growing phenomenon, which inflects losses on the national economy because half of the financial transfers of expats go outside the country, about SR45 billion annually.

“It is unfortunate that some citizens earn only SR500 to SR4,000 a month for covering up foreign workers,” he added. An official at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry branch in Baha said the ministry with the help and cooperation of other government agencies is strongly fighting such cover-up operations.

He said the inspection teams of the ministry discovers many such cases every day in the various commercial activities, especially in the retail sector and food stores, in addition to the spare parts shops, construction materials, health and electricity appliances and others. In the industrial sector cover-up operations are concentrated in car workshops, service centers and spare parts shops.

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