MADINAH — The Madinah Municipality decision to enforce mandatory fingerprint registrations five times every working day has irked the staff. Expressing resentment over the decision, some of the employees gathered in the lobby of the municipality building on Tuesday, causing chaotic scenes and affecting work. The employees urged the authorities to review the decision. However, Madinah Mayor Muhammad Al-Amri told a local newspaper that the new system of five times fingerprint registrations every working day was a legal measure aimed at ensuring punctuality and productivity. "This shows our keenness to ensure productivity, offer best services to customers, guarantee occupational justice to staff members, and identify those who are negligent in their duties," he said. Al-Amri estimated the number of municipality workers in the region at 2,300. "All workers of the mayoralty and municipal offices follow working hours without fail and do their duties efficiently," he told Al-Madina Arabic daily. However, he said, that some employees of Madinah mayoralty and municipalities were not strictly following their working hours. Some of them get out of the office after fingerprinting and come back late, thus affecting the department's services to citizens and residents. "In order to discipline these workers, we had to adopt a new system. We have conducted a study on the productivity of employees to improve their services. According to the new mechanism an employee has to be fingerprinted five times a day," Al-Amri said. The first fingerprinting will be done at the time of arrival at the work place, the second will be carried out between 9 a.m. and 9.30 a.m., the third between 10.30 a.m. and 11.00 a.m., the fourth between 11.45 a.m. and 12.15 p.m. and the last one while leaving the office after completing working hours. "The new mechanism will enable authorities to follow up activities of workers three times a day and make sure of their presence at work place," Al-Amri said. "We have adopted various methods in the past to ensure work discipline and we have found the new mechanism as the most ideal and effective," he pointed out. He said the mayoralty introduced a new electronic program for the new fingerprinting system. "It's flexible and takes into consideration the duty hours of field workers. It also considers all other work situations like medical treatment in coordination with direct bosses of workers." Every employee is allowed to skip a maximum of 10 hours monthly, considering his special situations. "We have noticed that some other government departments have introduced the new system before us," Al-Amri said. "We have introduced this new mechanism not to take punitive action against anybody but to enhance productivity of our various departments." He added: "Many important work at the mayoralty and municipal offices have been delayed due to absence of workers and their negligence. This system was introduced to serve citizens, establish equality among workers and encourage them to follow the Kingdom's regulations."
