Okaz SAUDI citizens are more worthy of jobs in their own country. This is a fact that no one will contest. However, I have noticed an excessive social sensitivity about the appointment lately of few non-Saudis in some public jobs as advisers or experts in some government departments. Such sensitivity did not exist in the past at this extent. Please do not argue back that qualified Saudi personnel did not exist in the past and that they are available now. This may be partly true but there are other reasons for refusing the appointment of expatriates in certain jobs including a growing trend of not accepting the others. The refusal to accept the others has developed to such an extent that it has become a social pattern. It has become quite clear that there are fluctuations in the public temperament to the extent that the appointment of some foreign advisers in the Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) was even discussed by the Shoura (Consultative) Council last week. Before that, the matter was widely discussed in the social media with a majority of tweeters criticizing the move. I am not here defending Saudia or the other government departments which have appointed foreigners as experts or consultants as I am not quite aware of the reasons and circumstances which have necessitated the contracting of these foreigners. However, my legitimate question here is: Why the suspicion and lack of trust in the managers and board of directors of the companies which have contracted these foreigners to take up some senior jobs? Why do not we believe that there is temporary need for their services especially that the jobs they have been appointed to fill hardly run up to about one percent of the available public openings? All the countries of the world including those who are by far ahead of us in population, universities and qualified citizens, do not shy away from appointing foreigners in a variety of high posts. A number of our own Saudi nationals are now working as pilots in air companies, engineers in oil companies and doctors in hospitals of these countries. The air companies around us which we continue to praise day and night have foreign presidents and foreign section heads. About 90 percent of the workforce in the countries around us are expatriates though their own citizens suffer greatly from unemployment yet the question of appointing expatriates to fill in some senior positions was not discussed with the same social sensitivity by which we are tackling the matter. We have discussed the issue of appointment of some expatriates to take up jobs as experts or consultants with a great deal of frustration. We have actually used social term to confront a purely vocational question. No government deportment or any other body is above criticism. This does not cancel the right of the citizens to obtain jobs in their own country and acquire the public jobs but work may have other requirements which may not be known to us. I strongly believe that focusing on such individual cases will distract us from our main issues including the expansion of the private sector and the creation of more jobs for the Saudis. This is more important to the country and its people than who was appointed where. We should not, therefore, stop at the appointment of some expatriates in certain jobs or focus our attention on certain nationalities over the others.
