RIYADH — A special committee, following up on the implementation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development's decision to Saudize about 50 percent of the jobs in the mobile shops during the coming six months, has discovered that as many as 11,584 shops have honored the decision, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday. According to the agency, the committee detected violations in 2,198 shops, of which 1,179 were closed down and 549 handed final warnings. The other shops were closed at the time of the inspection tour. In addition to the ministry, the committee comprises representatives from the ministries of commerce and investments and the municipal and rural affairs in addition to the police. Undersecretary of the ministry, Fahd Bin Abdullah Al-Ouwaidi, said the Eastern Province has 3,166 committed shops followed by Riyadh which has 1,781 which responded favorably to the Saudization process. He said the inspection tours of the mobile shops will continue until the jobs in the communications sector is 100 percent Saudized by the first of Dhul Hijja 1437H (Sept. 2). Ouwaidi warned that the ministry would not relax in implementing its decision, be the shops big or small, until the entire sector has been Saudized. He said the largest number of the violating shops were in the Eastern Province with 632 and the smallest were in Najran with only 10 shops. He revealed that during 30 days, the committee made 13,814 inspection tours in various areas in the Kingdom.
