Eastern Province recruitment officials will have discussions Monday with their Ethiopian and Kenyan counterparts to clear the backlog of housemaid recruitment applications, which have delayed the arrival of these African workers. Hussein Al-Mutairi, a member of the Recruitment Committee at the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that “housemaid recruitment applications have been processed slowly causing delays and a backlog of applications. The tour by Eastern Province recruitment offices seeks to identify the real reasons behind such delays.” These offices have signed contracts with sponsors and they are required to fulfill their obligations within a set time. Some offices had to extend the deadline to three to four months when previous contracts would give only 30-60 days to recruit a housemaid. Besides, some offices will sign new contracts with new recruitment offices in Ethiopia and Kenya because the old recruitment offices have not lived up to their obligations in terms of deadlines, said Al-Mutairi. Foreign recruitment offices are allowed to sign contracts with five Ethiopian recruitment offices while Kenyan laws allow only two, he added. “The Saudi recruitment offices are obliged to comply with the number of contracts set out in the Kenyan and Ethiopian laws.” There are 170 recruitment offices in Ethiopia and this number might increase due to the large number of applicants seeking to obtain recruitment licenses while Kenya has 150 recruitment offices, Al-Mutairi said. Recruitment costs have remained the same despite the ban on recruiting Indonesian housemaids. The cost of recruiting a Kenyan housemaid remains at SR9,000 including the SR2,000 visa fee. An Ethiopian housemaid costs SR8,500 including the SR2,000 visa fee. The monthly salary of a Kenyan housemaid is SR800 and that of an Ethiopian housemaid is SR700. Ethiopian and Kenyan housemaid applications represent 70 percent of total housemaid applications, especially in light of the obstacles hindering recruitment of Indonesian and Filipino housemaids and the difficult conditions and requirements set by these two countries on Saudi sponsors, Al
