JEDDAH, 22 November 2006 — Like many men his age, Ibrahim, 32, has dreams of being his own boss with a small, Saudi-owned-and-operated marketing consultancy in Jeddah. He rented his office, developed contacts and even landed his first potential client.

But before Ibrahim (who didn’t want his full name published) could hit the ground running he needed the proper licensing, including compulsory membership of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry (JCCI).

Issuing a business license or any documentation from government agencies can be quite a long and boring procedure for an individual, but many Saudis like Ibrahim take an easier, if also more costly, route: they go to a local muaqib. “I usually don’t like to deal with government chasers, but this time it was an exception,” said Ibrahim.

A muaqib, which translates as “government chaser”, is a man who does all the bureaucratic legwork for you. Working with a muaqib can save you months worth of bureaucracy. More successful muaqibs are well known at government agencies, and therefore can expedite paperwork. Often what would take three months for an average Saudi entrepreneur can be done by a muaqib in a day or two.

When approaching the office of a muaqib, you might be asked if you want something “the long way” or “the short way”. The short way may cost a few extra hundred, or even thousands, of riyals.

Abou Khalid, an experienced muaqib in Jeddah, says that in order to receive a business license, one must submit, among other things, proof of office ownership or a rental contract as well as a printed locater map of the business that is obtained through the Jeddah Municipality. He says getting that map can take a long time.

He also said that a typical business license obtained “the long way” through a muaqib costs about SR2,600 (about $700) plus the cost of a post office box, which is another requisite for the license. The fees include the SR1,000 paid to the city and SR600 as the compulsory membership to the chamber of commerce. The other SR1,000 is the fee Khalid would charge for his work facilitating the license.

“The whole procedure might take a month or so,” he said, but then quickly added: “If you want, I can finalize it in one day.”

Welcome to “the short way”.

Khalid said that for SR6,000 ($1,600) — half paid up front and the other half on delivery — he could have the license the following day without requiring the post office box or the the locater map.

When asked how he could get the process done so quickly and without all of the requirements, he smiled: “I have my own connections.”

Another small-scale businessman, who did not want to be named in this report, said he once went to a muaqib seeking “the short way” toward obtaining a license to practice as a marketing consultant. He needed to expedite his license because he said he had a shot at a lucrative client.

The Saudi in his early 30s went to a local muaqib. When he told the government chaser that he had yet to rent office space and was working from home, the man said “la mushqila” (“no problem”) and quickly pulled out a blank rental contract from his desk drawer. He filled out a fake rental contract. He signed the name of an imaginary landlord and even stamped it with the name of a shell real-estate company he had registered precisely for the purpose of making fake commercial real-estate contracts.

The muaqib used his own post office box and told his customer that he could easily change it later.

“Even at that point I still had doubts that my license would finish by the next day; it took two months for a relative of mine to finalize his license,” he said.

But sure enough, the following day the muaqib called his client and informed him he could drop by the office, pay the remaining SR800, and pick up his license. He was now open for business.