Five years to stay or leave

Muna Al-Fuzai

The new minister of social affairs is trying to offer solutions for restricting, organizing and controlling the visa trade in Kuwait by limiting the duration of expatriates’ residency in Kuwait to five years.
When I first read about it, I thought it was a joke and a waste of time for many reasons.

First, the decision if made means putting all expatriates in one category and this is wrong. There is a need for certain kinds of expatriates to be in Kuwait indefinitely due to their professionalism and expertise such as doctors, teachers, engineers and anyone who falls into this category. They are service providers and there will be always a demand for them in the market. But there is no need for the so-called marginal laborers.

Those who come to Kuwait with no work contract as if they are going fishing and if they get luck they would stay or leave. They and their Kuwaiti sponsors are the reason for the chaos in Kuwait and they must be tracked, sent home and penalized.

Second, this decision will not pass the government or the National Assembly if approved by the ministry of social affairs. Because the powers of politicians and owners of real estate are more than the power of a minister, so why she/he would waste their time closing a goldmine for all these people? Who will rent their buildings and flats? Who will be filling private schools? This is the view of all those merchants who wants to see the country get filled with expatriates, regardless if we need them or not. They don’t care. They only care about their own interests and this is why we have visa traders.

I think tracking and exposing visa traders is the key to this matter and not limiting residency for five years. Finally, there is no clear reason for this subject to take priority, and why five and not ten or one year? I think the whole idea is a waste of time among all the corruption and urgent matters this ministry needs to confront and handle. The proposal to repatriate 2,691,169 expatriates is not practical and would be hard to implement.

This issue was supposed to be organized and controlled years ago by strict regulations that supervise the percentage of comers to Kuwait and categorize them according to the country’s needs. Here is Kuwait, we have some legally authorized companies for bringing in workers and these are the ones who should only be permitted to bring expert workers to Kuwait.
So far, I don’t see this happening. Qatar has taken many steps in this field in all sectors – they are clear about their need for professional expatriate labor and even in the number of granting driving licenses to expats. No one is complaining – everything is going all right over there. By Muna Al-Fuzai Kuwait Times