JCCI forms committee to beat the deadline

The Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) has established a joint committee with four consulates — Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Indonesian — to resolve the current problem and issues with mutual understanding and suggestions following a recent meeting with the heads of the consulates.
Heads of consulates of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Egypt had met at the chamber on Saturday under the supervision of JCCI Vice President Mazen Batterjee and Faisal Bataweel, head of social responsibilities department at the chamber.
Nosheen Ahmed, JCCI coordinator, said the committee was formed by mutual understanding and cooperation of the members. She added that the suggestion came from Bataweel, who asked the officials to come up with four names from seven consulates who will present the suggested solutions to Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal.
Ahmed told Arab News that this step was taken by the JCCI to bring the consulates on one platform to work with mutual understating and each other’s help and suggestions to solve the current problems of the workers. “JCCI’s main task is to support the immigration office, reduction of paperwork and division of the load to other areas,” she said.
She explained that there are two types of workers — those who want to go on final exit and others who want to legalize their status and want to stay in the Kingdom. The committee will see how to handle the problems of these two categories which is further divided into 14 sub-categories.
She said that the committee will also look into ways of helping the Passport Department and labor offices and distributing the workload to other offices.
According to information from the seen consulates, almost 72,000 people want to go on exit and nearly 720,000 people from the Western Province alone want to correct their status.
Ahmed said the main points discussed at the meeting included obstacles and problems facing correction of status or obtaining final exit, understanding of law in different cities of the Kingdom, role of the labor office, immigration office and consulates; understanding the pressure and load on the departments mentioned; number of officials available in the departments; anxiety of the public regarding the July 3 deadline; and concerns of the consulates toward controlling their citizens after the deadline.