by Damian Reilly on Thursday, 18 February 2010
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/581838-i ... -residency
Less than a month after Bahrain's Labour Minister railed against the threat posed by expatriate workers to local people's culture and very "existence", while advocating their removal from the Gulf as quickly as is humanly possible, a calmer voice has been heard opining on the subject.
Mishal Kanoo, thoughtful head of one the region's major business dynasties, says he thinks long-term UAE residents should be granted residency, should they want it, in reward for their efforts to build the country.
"Someone who has been here for thirty-odd years, in the country, they should naturally get residency. That is my opinion. I have no issues with residency. As long as people are coming to add value, why not?" he told my colleague Joanne Bladd.
The issue of residency is a tough one for UAE policymakers, who are keen to ensure their own people are well looked after and that the local way of life is preserved. The main fear is that local people might get overwhelmed by hordes of foreigners - after all, they are already a minority in their own country.
Granting residency and granting citizenship are two very different things in the Gulf, where local people enjoy substantial financial support from their respective governments, in addition to free schooling, healthcare and other benefits.
Granting residency, presumably, would not entitle expatriates to the privileges of citizenship, such as access to social welfare for free, it would only remove the imperative to leave the country as soon as becoming unemployed. That said, it would change the mindset of those granted it towards the country in which they live.
The proud owner of a permanent residency visa to a GCC country would be far more likely to see his surroundings as a place in which to put down roots. Whether that is a good thing is a question for lawmakers.
One thing residency for long term GCC dwellers would prevent is the sad sight of people at retirement age leaving the country they love and have given the best years of their life to help build simply because they can no longer contribute to it professionally. That has always seemed a harsh way to say thank you.
A nasty fright this week opening my monthly water and electricity bill. It's gone from the usual AED150 to something horribly close to AED700, a rise of more than 400 percent. Some mistake? The patient lady on the telephone at DEWA - Dubai's water and electricity authority - explains it is the newly added Housing Fee, which everyone in Dubai should have been paying since its inception in early 2005.
The reason some people are only starting to pay it now is because the process of adding everyone's name to the relevant database has been a long and painstaking one, she said. The Housing Fee, for those of you still not acquainted with it - and judging from internet forums for Dubai expatriates, that is quite a lot of people - is either an annual five percent of your rent, or one percent of the property's purchase price, payable monthly.
Still indignant at the sudden hike in the bill, I asked if people could expect a backdated bill for all the months they hadn't been paying, through no fault of their own. "Yes," was the answer. Of course, the lady on the phone wasn't an official spokeswoman for DEWA, she was a call centre operative trained to answer customer queries.
When I called back again, the man who answered said there would be no backdated bills. Efforts to get hold of DEWA spokesperson proper have proved about as fruitful as catching a Mossad secret agent. Can anyone clarify the situation? Because on top of speeding fines, SALIK penalties (which are essentially a tax on forgetfulness), parking fines, property service fees and maintenance charges, a backdated bill for housing fees (for road cleaning and public bins, the lady on the phone explained) would be highly unwelcome at the moment.
Damian Reilly is the editor of Arabian Business.
The comments after the article are also well worth reading.
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