Munir Hussain, an Indian national, works for a logistics company in Kuwait. He lives on a fair amount of his salary, which does not exceed 75 dinars (about $ 250), and the rest of it goes to India, where his family consists of his wife, three sons, his mother and some of his brothers.
Today, however, Mounir, 36, is worried about his professional future, in a way that he has not experienced for 17 years, which he spent on Kuwait, after he was threatened by the danger of leaving within 800 thousand of his fellow citizens.
The story began with the outbreak of the Corona virus "Covid-19 ″", as a crisis emerged, in the presence of tens of thousands of violators of the residence law, and with it the intensity of demands for amending the demographics.
The population of Kuwait is 4.8 million, of whom Kuwaitis constitute one million and 450 thousand citizens, compared to 3 million and 350 thousand expatriates, which the government considers an imbalance that should be corrected to an ideal situation in which Kuwaitis constitute 70%, compared to 30% of the expatriates.
A few days ago, the Parliamentary Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee approved a proposal for a law to amend the demographics according to the quota system or "quota" for each nationality, provided that the number of any community does not exceed a third of Kuwaitis as a maximum.
The proposal was referred to the competent Human Resources Development Committee, with a view to studying it before referring it to the National Assembly for voting.
If the law is approved and approved, hundreds of thousands of expatriates will be deported, and the Indian community will be the most affected, followed by the Egyptian community.
Kuwaiti National Assembly member Dr. Badr Al-Mulla was among the five deputies who submitted the draft law, out of the necessity that there be a weight for each community so that its children do not constitute a majority.
For example, Al-Mulla gives an example of the Indian community, which has an estimated population of 1.5 million, compared to 1.4 million Kuwaitis, which he says poses a security and social danger.
And Mulla shows that the proposed bill will regulate the distribution of each nationality in certain proportions, thereby modifying the demographics over a period of 5 to 10 years.
Al-Mulla explains that in the event of the approval of the law, the numbers of arrivals will decrease, whether by voluntary departure, deportation or termination of contracts, which will lead to a reduction in the percentage of these nationalities, in exchange for a rise in the numbers of Kuwaitis, to achieve a balance between them.
According to Al-Mulla, the law will include a ban on government agencies, so that it cannot bring in a person from any country that exceeds the stipulated percentage.
On the other hand, domestic workers will not be included in the "quota" that the law will impose, along with those who are used in contracts for government projects, but with controls preventing the renewal of their residency or transferring them to other bodies after the end of the project, while the law will open the door In front of bringing in labor from other countries.
In this context, the economic analyst, Dr. Hajjaj Bou Khaddour, sees the bill as avoiding right, because it adopted the "quota" criterion according to nationality, while the criterion from his point of view must be efficiency.
He explained that "knowledge capital" is the basis in the workforce, and therefore it is he who contributes to the success of the projects that Kuwait wants to accomplish within its future vision during the next thirty years.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Bou Khaddour admits that there is a defect in the workforce inside Kuwait, so the expatriates are not chosen according to the efficiency and need, and thus the quantity has overpowered the type, and the projects that need to be accomplished by 100 people, are accomplished by two thousand of a certain nationality, and this created Cognitive capital is weak and unproductive on the one hand, and has negatively affected the demographics on the other hand.
And Bo Khaddour considered that the Omani experience is the most successful in the Gulf, as it achieved a qualitative shift because it adopted the policy of bringing in competent workers from specific countries.
On the other hand, the Omanis were sent to these countries to gain experience, and this enriched the various sectors in Oman after the Omanis returned with new experiences, which was reflected by the impressive success despite the limited resources of the Sultanate, compared to other Gulf countries.
For his part, economic analyst Mohamed Ramadan believes that the "quota" in the draft law is good and sound, but without any expatriate being deported, and from his point of view, the best way is to stop the entry of members of communities with a large population, so that their percentage decreases gradually.
Ramadan, in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, stated that most of the government intends to deport them in the event of the law being passed are workers in the private sector, not the government, pointing to the insufficient numbers of Kuwaitis to fill the vacuum that these people will leave after their deportation within the policy of Emiratisation.
Here, Ramadan stressed the need to prepare national cadres to replace expatriates before going to reduce their numbers, citing an example of the nursing profession, which has scarce the presence of Kuwaitis of both sexes among those working in them.
Ramadan supported the idea of reducing the numbers of specific nationalities inside Kuwait to become within the acceptable limit, adding, "This is a natural issue and a security issue in the first place, without dispute."
Ramadan believes that expatriates are the pillar of economic growth in the state, because they are the ones that provide productivity and are the reason for incomes earned by companies, and therefore they are the main reason for the rotation of the wheel of economic growth that any country needs, and therefore reducing the expatriate workforce will negatively affect the economy.
Ramadan stressed that many steps must be preceded by the decision to reduce the number of expatriates, foremost of which is the improvement of education outcomes in various fields, so that a Kuwaiti can replace the expatriate, as well as the need to change the prevailing culture that prevents Kuwaitis from working with many of the work done by expatriates.
Ramadan considered that Kuwait differs from other countries that were able to settle its jobs like Saudi Arabia and Oman, attributing the reason for this to the scarcity of jobs and low income in the two countries compared to Kuwait.
He pointed out that the wider the difference between wages for expatriate and national workers, the more difficult the problem will become, as is the case in Kuwait.