Expat workers in Saudi are like ticking time bombs: Journalist

Recently workers in Saudi made headlines when they set their company buses on fire following reports that they hadn't been paid their salaries on time.

This news sparked debates on their situation in the country. Saudi journalist, Abdulrahman Saad Al Araabi, in his Opinion article Expat workers pose a danger to our country in the Saudi Gazette says the incident to should be an eye-opener for the country.

He explains,

We have to realize that the large number of expatriate workers in this country could really be dangerous. No one can deny the contributions expatriate workers have made to our economy and other fields.

However, some of them can pose security threats to this country. In my opinion, such workers are time bombs that could go off at any minute.

Talking about personal experiences, Al Araabi states "many expats hate us and are angry because we are a rich country."

He says he unsure why expats might be angry with Saudi and its citizens, adding that, the media houses in the expats' countries often exaggerate the situation leading to unnecessary outrage.

Why they are angry I do not know. They act as if we stole their money and snatched it from them. The truth is that our resources and money are blessings from Allah Almighty. Some of them go so far as to say that we, Saudis, do not deserve these blessings and the money we have.

That is the reason why some of them become violent when they do not get paid on time. They start to act as if the Kingdom and all Saudis are thieves or criminals. Of course, the newspapers in their countries add fuel to the fire and publish stories about such incidents and blow things out of proportion.

However, Al Araabi claims the situation isn't complication and provides a solution to end it. Investing the Saudi employees, he says would be the most ideal way to deal with expat issues.

The only way to solve it is for Saudi businessmen to take serious steps to replace expatriate workers with Saudis and invest more in Saudi employees. Employers have to bear the training costs of Saudis and pay them good salaries in order to encourage them to work in the private sector. If we do not take Saudization seriously then nothing will change and the losses might be more costly than we realize.