QATARSUCKS and the world needs to know!

A Qatari employer yesterday lambasted the calls made by some of the participants of the ongoing regional symposium on expatriate workforce to replace expats with citizens of the Gulf states in the private sector as “unrealistic”.

Mohamed al-Kubaisi, a board member at a Qatari private company, told a session at the symposium he was no longer recruiting Qataris or citizens of the GCC as he had a “bitter experience” with both.

“I think those who request the private sector to recruit citizens of the Gulf states instead of expats are not realistic. As a private sector (businessman), I am seeking profits. But my attempts to recruit Qataris, Bahrainis and Omani have only caused me heavy losses,” he said.

Al-Kubaisi also said that replacement policies would adversely affect the ongoing development programmes in the GCC states. “I went to the Ministry of Civil Service and Housing Affairs to get lists of the unemployed Qataris but they did not even call me back.

“When I went to Bahrain and Oman to bring employees from there, it was a failure. I have provided the Bahrainis and Omanis with handsome salaries and good allowances, but once they came and joined work, they started looking for jobs at rival companies in the field,” he said, while noting that lifting the sponsor’s control on employees could lead to heavy losses for the private sector.

He also called for setting some rules to regulate the employment of the citizens of the GCC, saying that they abused the freedom given to them by the Qatari law. “There is a need to bring the Gulf national under some sort of control when they come to work here. I have invested much money to recruit Gulf nationals, but my experience with them made me reluctant to repeat this again,” he explained.

However, Dr Hussain al-Hammadi, an official at the UAE ministry of economy, said that if the private sector provided national employees with favourable work environment, they would not leave their jobs.

“The private sector even prefers to recruit the Asian expats to the Arabs because the former is cheaper. This has led the expats from Arab countries to return home,” he added.

Qatarsucks.com comments: The verdict is in and Asians are preferred to Gulf workers because they can be exploited to a much higher degree in Qatar. Did I read this article correctly or am I just stupid? My readers... please let me know what you thought about this article.