Okaz/Saudi Gazette DAMMAM — The Philippines government has recently issued a decision enabling the Saudi recruitment offices to contract four manpower exporting offices in the country instead of two previously, industry sources have revealed. They said the Ministry of Labor in Manila previously allowed recruitment offices to sign contracts with 20 counterparts abroad while it only allowed foreign offices to deal with only two manpower export offices in the country. This number has now been raised to four, they said. The sources said the decision to raise the number from two to four offices would be communicated to all related government and private agencies in the Philippines. Hakeem Al-Khinaizi, owner of a recruitment office in Dammam, described the decision of the Philippine ministry as an important step in the right direction and said it would help reduce the cost of importing manpower from the country. He said the Saudi recruitment offices would now start looking for cheap offices in the Philippines to sign contracts with. He said the time allowed under the contracts for the arrival of the Filipino housemaids in the Kingdom is a maximum of 60 days. Khinaizi said problems might arise when a maid refused to board the plane to Saudi Arabia in the last moment or she was found to be carrying an infectious disease. "In such cases, the recruitment offices in the Philippines will have to start the procedures from the beginning, which will require more time," he said. According to Khinaizi, the cost of importing a housemaid from the Philippines will be about SR17,000, in addition to SR2,000 in visa fee and SR850 VAT. The monthly salary is fixed at SR1,500. With the holy month of Ramadan approaching close, the demand for household helps from Saudi families is increasing. Minister of Labor and Social Development Ahmed Al-has reached an agreement with its Ethiopian counterpart to lift a ban on the recruitment of housemaids from the northeast African country starting next month. The first batch of around 20,000 Ethiopian housemaids are expected to arrive in the country next month as the ministry has begun issuing work visas to recruitment offices as well as individuals. The ministry also said it would open new channels of recruitment and provide citizens with more options to choose their workers from. Hussain Al-Mutairi, head of the recruitment committee in the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said recently that no housemaid will be brought over to the Kingdom unless she attends a 30-day training and holds a police verification certificate as well as a medical fitness certificate.
