Expat workers pose threat to our existence - Minister

Source: Gulf News
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Speaking at the 15th Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) annual conference in the capital, Dr Majeed Al Alawi, Bahrain's Minister of Labour, said, "No one would ever believe that the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, which employ 17 million foreign workers, have more than one million unemployed citizens."
Expatriates who come to the Gulf region for jobs on time-bound assignments never leave, and pose a threat to "our existence", a Bahraini minister warned on Tuesday.
Speaking at the 15th Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) annual conference in the capital, Dr Majeed Al Alawi, Bahrain's Minister of Labour, said, "No one would ever believe that the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, which employ 17 million foreign workers, have more than one million unemployed citizens."
He added that "this influx of foreigners poses a threat to our existence," citing the situation in Singapore and the Maldives, "where foreign workers had been brought on temporary contracts and are now ruling these countries."
Dr Al Alawi, who is driving labour reforms in Bahrain, said the economic crisis has caused 50 per cent of projects in the Gulf to come to a halt. "But this has not been accompanied by a decline in the numbers of foreign workers.
"He who thinks this foreign manpower in the region comes for completing a project and leaves once it is completed is wrong. They come to stay. They buy and sell in their market created on our lands but accommodate no Arabs."
Dr Al Alawi, who was an opposition activist living in exile in London, returned home after the Bahraini ruler declared an amnesty for opposition figures in 1999.
On national identity, he said: "This way countries were lost and we, in the Gulf, are facing the same threat. If this is not happening now, it will happen in the next generation."
Another aspect of the crisis, he said is that the construction sector, which only contributes 8 per cent to the GDP, but accommodates 40 per cent of the foreign workforce.
Dr Al Alawi has advocated ending the sponsorship system and allowing free movement of expatriate workers between jobs in the GCC countries.