Expats angry at local-only Bahrain subsidies

DUEL PRICE: Expats at risk of paying more than nationals for basic goods as new proposal awaits approval in Bahrain. (Getty Images)

Bahrain's proposed a dual price plan under which expatriates will be charged more than nationals for basic commodities has come under fire from rights activists and retailers, local newspapers reported on Sunday.

Earlier this month MPs backed a recommendation by parliament’s financial and economic affairs committee to subsidise food and other basic goods for nationals and exclude foreign workers from receiving any financial help to cope with rising inflation in the Gulf Arab state.

Indian Community Relief Fund general-secretary C.R.Nambiar labelling the proposals “racist”, while British ambassador Jamie Brown pointed out that many of the poorest people in the kingdom were foreigners, reported Bahrain's Gulf Daily News.

Abdulla Al Deerazi, of the Bahraini Human Rights Society, said the dual pricing plan as a violation of human rights, according to the newspaper.

Foreign workers make up about 38% of the nation’s 743,000 population, according to newswire Reuters, although the percentage of expatriates who contribute to the country's workforce is far higher.

Retailers said the proposals were impractical due to the difficulty discerning whether a customer was a Bahraini national and the logistics of implementing the system.

“A person who looks like an Arab can claim he is a Bahraini when he is actually from another Gulf country,” a spokesperson for the Universal Food Center said, quoted Gulf Daily News.

“Likewise, a person who doesn’t look like an Arab at all can claim he is a naturalised Bahraini."

A spokesperson for supermarket Mega Mart added: “For the computer, all customers are the same and maintaining two prices based on nationality is very difficult...."

The criticism comes as debate over the rights of expatriates heats up in Bahrain. In December the parliament approved plans to more than double the cost of work permits for foreign nationals.

Bahrain is also the author of the controversial six-year residency cap on unskilled expatriate workers, which it put forward at December's GCC summit in Doha. The proposal has yet to be approved.

MPs have defended the dual price plan, blaming soaring inflation and the higher cost of living for a rise in violent crime in the kingdom. MPs have voted to take the matter directly to prime minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa for further consideration.

Bahrain’s inflation stood at 3.2% in 2007, one of the lower rates in the Gulf. The state’s unemployment rate among nationals stands at 4%, with almost 20,000 Bahrainis jobless.

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READERS' COMMENTS

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Posted by Babuji, Dubai, UAE on Monday 21 January 2008 at 18:31 UAE time


Yes the best way give better life to the citizens of a country is to improve them internally. Thus as a country, Bahrain should draw plan to increase the education and academic status of their citizens. This will not only get them jobs allocated to be filled only by arabs inside and outside Bahrain, but also in the nearby GCC countiries as many Arab jobs are not filled due to lack of right candidates.

Country should plan a longterm improvement program and recruit locals as trainees under in all departments just to get a exposure and not to get any result. Thus joblessness can be solved. Working on Expats and their spending will directly affect the demographic population and nothing else.

Like Serfs in the Dark Ages...
Posted by Louie Tedesco, Dubai, UAE on Monday 21 January 2008 at 08:04 UAE time


Some may view this subject as a joke but it is a reality. Real decisions, made by real people, in real positions of power, whether such policies are implemented or not is irrelevant. The policy was given thought, it was developed, discussed internally and then presented to the public. Publicizing such political policies and programs only serves to show the world at large the view held by the local minority population of the foreign labour population which has built their nation - that these are second class citizens who are only tolerated as a matter of convenience whereby their meagre earnings are to be harvested like farm-kept cattle.

Such policies are clearly a violation of human rights and blatant discrimination. In countries who have signed UN charters on human rights, authors of such policies would be stripped of their political powers if such discriminatory plans were accidentally revealed. Here, the policy is openly presented as a benefit to citizens without due regard of the negative reactions and opinions of the foreign press and the governments of the affected expats. We should be giving thought to those other plans and policies which are so terribly preposterous that they do not even make it beyond the inner sanctum of politics to reach the ear of the public. When discriminatory policies such as this become a forum for open discussion in the 21st century, I shudder to think at what the "secret policies" contain that are regularly rejected.

my view on the article for price hike for expats in bahrain
Posted by Sameera Khan, Ajman, United Arab Emirates on Monday 21 January 2008 at 07:26 UAE time


One cannot deny and one cannot forget their past. If the developed middle-east countries are witnessing what they are seeing today, a large contribution of hard-work, dedication, sweat and heart was put in equally by the expats. Leaders have vision, but the workers, who consist mainly of expats, drive that vision to a reality. Least you can show gratitude is by treating them equally and giving them a home away from their home

Subsidies for Nationals in Bahrain
Posted by Wilhelm Niederhauser, Sharjah, UAE on Sunday 20 January 2008 at 20:12 UAE time

I would like to comment that in the UAE expats pay an electricity tariff of 20 fils per kWh against 7.5 fils for the nationals. Has ever anyone called it racist ? Although such practice would be unthinkable in Europe, it is the right of a country to treat their citizens more favourably.

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