Saudi: New Shoura proposal for gratuity welcomed

April 1, 2013
shouracouncil
Riyadh, Apr 1: Saudis across the Kingdom have welcomed the new Shoura Council proposal to increase end of service benefits (ESB) of civil servants, saying it would encourage public servants to work hard and improve the living conditions of retirees.

A Shoura meeting, chaired by Vice President Muhammad Al-Jafri, approved the proposal made by a former member Ehsan Abdul Jawad and instructed the Human Resources Committee to study the matter further.

“The majority of Shoura members supported the proposal to amend Article 53 of the Civil Service Law that deals with rights and benefits of civil servants,” said Fahad Al-Hamad, assistant to the president.

Under the new amendment, retirees would get a gratuity of half month’s salary for the first five years of service and one month's salary for every subsequent year. At present, public servants are getting only six months’ salaries following retirement.

Al-Hamad said the new proposal would help retirees live comfortably with their families and would help them settle their financial commitments.

“It will also help balance the difference between the salary they received before retirement and the pension,” he said, adding that public servants who have worked for several years deserved such compensation at the end of service.

Abdulelah Saaty, dean of the College of Business in Rabigh, lauded the proposal, saying it is big a motivation for civil servants across the country. “Public servants deserve such a scheme,” he told Arab News. He hoped the Shoura and the Cabinet would endorse the amended law.

“The newly proposed gratuity is already there in the Labor Law,” Saaty said, adding that expats have been receiving it for the past several years.

He said the proposal would benefit the country’s 1.2 million civil servants. Some public employees, such as those working for the education sector, already benefit from the scheme.

Saaty did not agree with the view of some Shoura members that the new scheme would encourage public servants to apply for early retirements in order to create jobs for young Saudis.

“People may stay long in service to get more money,” he said. “Life expectancy among Saudis has increased to 74 and the new scheme will help them lead a decent life.”

The number of Saudi retirees reached 571,367 by the end of 2012.

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News Network
March 21,2020

Mar 21: Qatari authorities arrested 10 nationals for breaking home quarantine rules as Doha tightens regulations amid the coronavirus outbreak, local daily The Peninsula Qatar reported on Saturday.

The Ministry of Public Health released a statement naming the detainees and said that the violators were currently being referred to prosecution.

The tiny country, where expatriates comprise the majority of the population, on Thursday reported eight more infections to take its tally to 470, the highest number among the six Gulf Arab states that have reported a total of more than 1,300 coronavirus cases.

Government spokeswoman Lulwa Rashed Al-Khater told a news conference the new cases included two Qataris who had been in Europe, with the rest migrant workers.

Qatari authorities on Tuesday announced the closure of several square kilometers of the industrial area in Doha, the capital, which also contains labor camps and other housing units.

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News Network
July 10,2020

Dubai, Jul 10: Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan has appointed Dina Amin as CEO of the Visual Arts Commission.

She will take the lead in implementing the ministry’s vision and directions in promoting and developing visual arts in the Kingdom and empowering practitioners in the field.

Amin is a leading Saudi specialist in visual arts and the international contemporary art field. She gained a bachelor’s degree in art history and architecture from Wellesley College, in the US, and also attended a collaborative program in architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During her career, spanning more than two decades, she has held senior positions in prominent international arts companies, including most recently Phillips, a global auction house for art, design, watches, jewels, and more.

She has also worked at Christie’s, one of the world’s most famous auction houses, employed in senior roles at the company’s international offices including New York, Dubai, and London.

The Visual Arts Commission is one of 11 new cultural bodies recently launched by the Ministry of Culture in line with the Saudi Vision 2030 reform plan to manage the empowerment and development of the Kingdom’s cultural sector. The commission will be responsible for managing and developing the visual arts sector to help achieve the ministry’s goals.

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Agencies
June 18,2020

Riyadh, Jun 18: Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb said that Saudi Arabia will resume tourist activities at the end of Shawwal (June 21) after a hiatus of more than three months due to lockdown measures imposed following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

The minister made the remarks during a television interview after chairing the emergency meeting of the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism on Wednesday. He said that the current indications are positive and that the Kingdom is ready to launch the summer program, which will be a boost for domestic tourism.

“It was revealed in a research study carried out by the Tourism Authority that 80 percent of Saudi citizens want to take advantage of domestic tourism. We will launch the domestic tourism program for the public after having made necessary coordination with the Ministry of Health and the concerned higher authorities,” he said.

Several Arab tourism ministers and officials of the relevant organizations attended the meeting, which discussed the challenges that the region’s tourism sector is facing due to the pandemic. Al-Khateeb pointed out that the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism, headed by Saudi Arabia, held the virtual session in exceptional circumstances to discuss ways to get out of this pandemic and revitalize the tourism sector.

“Saudi Arabia has initiated a package of financial stimulus activities with a total value of more than $61 billion to protect jobs and businesses and reduce the economic burden of the crisis. The domestic tourism sector has benefited from it as one of the important economic sectors, as it covered 60 percent of salaries of Saudi employees in the private sector for a period of three months,” he added.

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