MP wants limits on expat age, residence, numbers

MP Abdullah Al-Tameemi yesterday resubmitted a proposal that was rejected in the previous term by the legal committee for limiting the residence period of expatriates, after introducing some modifications. Tameemi now proposes an age limit of 50 years for low and semi-skilled professions in which the residence for expatriates in such professions will not be renewed after they reach 50 years of age.

The lawmaker said there is no use of issuing visas or renewing residence permits for expatriates who reach 50. He however proposed the age of 70 as the cap for high-skilled professions like doctors, advisors and university professors.

Tameemi said that he has increased the stay period in the new proposal to 10 years instead of five in the earlier proposal, adding that this can be renewed only once provided that the number of any single community does not exceed 15 percent of the total number of citizens, who currently stand at about 1.25 million.

This means that no foreign nationality should exceed 190,000, a figure that is too small because it is violated by Indians (700,000), Egyptians (500,000) and  Bangladeshis who slightly top 200,000.

If accepted, it means that hundreds of thousands of expatriates will be deported outright to keep up with the proposed quota system. Tameemi said that it is necessary to take measures to stop the influx of expatriates into the country who have already grown to more than double the number of citizens.

Expatriates currently number around 2.8 million people, including 650,000 domestic helpers. Meanwhile, the National Assembly’s human rights committee is
scheduled to meet tomorrow to study two draft laws for the establishment of a human rights commission.

Head of the panel MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan said that one draft law was presented by the government and the second by MPs. He hoped the committee will
finalize the law as soon as possible to comply with a pledge made by Kuwait in 2010

Source: KUNA