by Joel Bowman on Sunday, 20 January 2008
Bahrain’s proposed a duel 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.
by Joel Bowman on Sunday, 20 January 2008
Bahrain’s proposed a duel 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 duel 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.
