MP Safa Al-Hashem

KUWAIT: MP Safa Al-Hashem continued her anti-expatriate proposals by demanding a 10-year cap on the stay of foreigners in the country and a ban on dependent visas, except for parents. The lawmaker, who has already proposed taxing expatriates and imposing a five-percent fee on their money transfers, also called yesterday for doubling the charges for the recruitment of expatriates - to be paid by sponsors.

Hashem said that the country's demographic structure is very imbalanced in favor of expatriates, whose numbers are three times that of Kuwaitis, and called for strict measures to deal with this imbalance. Hashem said she submitted her proposals because many laws and decisions regarding foreign workers are not being implemented, which has enabled expatriates to work in more than one job, thus depriving Kuwaitis of such jobs.

She proposed that contractors of government projects must be forced to repatriate their expat workers back to their home countries after completing the projects. She also called for activating the rules and conditions regulating the process of estimating the needs of businesses of manpower from abroad to control the recruitment process.

Hashem proposed a total ban on dependent visas except for parents, and if any exceptions are provided, the sponsors must bear all their medical expenses. She also called for doubling the recruitment fees to be paid by the sponsors, but she exempted recruitment of maids from the increase. Hashem also proposed that the stay of expatriates in Kuwait should be limited to 10 years with the possibility of extending it only once for highly skilled employees. According to the latest official figures, there are 3.1 million expatriates in Kuwait at present against just 1.35 million Kuwaiti citizens.

By B Izzak