Expatriate workers in Kuwait, including Keralites, are worried as a call for demographic balance in that country is strengthening. Several lawmakers in the Arab country have already proposed drastic measures to reduce the number of foreigners there by getting rid of around one million expatriates in five years as Kuwaitis have become a minority in their own country.
Kuwait’s Opposition leader Abdulkarim Al-Kandari said earlier this week that he had started a signature campaign to demand a special debate on the rising numbers of foreigners in his country. “Kuwaitis should not remain a minority in their own country,” a report quoted Kandari as saying. Keralites in Kuwait expressed the fear that the call might lead to higher taxes and fees on foreigners.
“Many proposals, ranging from getting rid of expatriates through direct measures to imposing special taxes for outsiders, could be put forward to tackle the issue of rising population of outsiders in Kuwait. Keralites are going to be perhaps the worst hit by this move as unskilled and semi-skilled workers would find it unattractive to live there,” said Muhammad Yunus, who had worked in Kuwait for 17 years.
According to Yunus, lawmakers in Kuwait cannot be blamed for their demand as the population imbalance in that country has grown alarmingly -as far as nationals are concerned-in the past decade. “But the fact is that Kuwait can’t even think of expelling expatriate workers at this stage because they are the real force behind the country’s
economic life,” he said.
“We are not against expatriates. We used their assistance to build our nation but we must have a clear system about their numbers… We are not talking about deporting expatriates. It is rather organising the hiring of foreigners. We need to train Kuwaitis and prepare generations that are capable of managing the labour market,” a report quoted Kandari as saying.
As per the latest official statistics, Kuwait has around 3.1 million expatriates while the total population is 4.4 million. This means that expatriates form 70 per cent of the total population of Kuwait while the nationals, numbering just 1.33 million, are a minority at 30 per cent. This is where Kandari’s complaint is becoming valid, says Yunus.