Addressing a press conference, the PRGA Director General said the approval on that system has responded to achieve social protection and satisfaction in Gulf societies and facilitate the movement of Gulf manpower between the GCC capitals.
Such a unified system is the fruit of grand efforts the civil retirement and social insurance organs have exerted in the GCC to translate into action directives of the GCC leaders they ratified in their 25th session in Manama, Bahrain, December 2004, he said.
Hamad bin Abdullah Al Attiyah told reporters that extending the insurance protection umbrella stipulated the application of the civil retirement and social insurance law effective in any other GCC member on its citizens working in any other GCC capital.
Abdullah Al Attiyah further said that the GCC employees working outside their respective countries were to be easily registered as a subscriber to that unified system with the same conditions applicable in his own country.
Setting an example, Abdullah Al Attiyah made clear that a Qatari employee working in any other GCC country is to be registered on the application paper authorised at the Qatari PRGA for the purpose.
He said that the PRGA will ask the labour organs working in Qatar for names of employees working with them and who are belonging to another GCC countries so that the PRGA sends lists to the retirement organs in their respective countries to put them uner the system.
The Qatari PRGA will address the GCC civil retirement and social insurance concerning the Qatari employees working with labour organs subject to the civil retirement and social insurance laws effective in these countries to arrange for the registration of these Qatari employees pending to placing them under the aforesaid unified system as of January 1, 2007.
Abdullah Al Attiyah further said that the retirement and insurance organs in the states, the seat of labour to keep records or archives about the other GCC countries’citizens in light of records such organs receive from the labour organs.
In this concern, Abdullah Al Attiyah said the PRGA will ask the labour organs in Qatar and which are subject to the civil retirement and insurances law, to provide it with names of their employees who belong to other GCC members to then send the lists to the retirement organs in their respective countries to apply such a system on them.
Asked about subscription charge percentage for the retirement system, Abdullah Al Attiyah said the percetnage differs from one Gulf state to another.
Elaborating he said as in Qatar it is 15 per cent, in which the employee pays five per cent and 10 per cent to be paid by the labour organ, in Saudi Arabia it is 18 per cent , equally shared by the employee and the labour organ, in Bahrain it is 15 per cent, with six per cent to be paid by the employee and 9 per cent by the labour organ, in Oman it is 21.4 per cent with the employee paying six per cent and the labour organ paying the remaining portion.
Abdullah Al Attiyah added that the percentage in the UAE is 20 per cent , with the subscriber paying five per cent and 15 per cent to be paid by the labour organ, in Kuwait it is 27 per cent, six per cent of which to be paid by the subscriber while the labour organ pays 11 per cent and the state of Kuwait contributes to the remaining portion of 10 per cent.
The percentages of the subscription charges differ between the public or governmental sector and the private sector in each GCC member, Abdullah Al Attiyah said.
He went on to say that the collection of such charges is made as per the retirement law in the homeland of the employee and not as per the law of the state , the seat of labour.
The Director General went on to say that out of its due keenness to alleviate burden on its citizens working in the other GCC member states, the government of Qatar will bear the additional sums on the set percentage levied on the employee , namely five per cent plus the legal periods.
The state of Qatar has always been keen to give the Qatari citizen his rights as far as the retirement issue is concerned even if he is working outside the state of Qatar, Abdullah Al Attiyah said.
The Qatari citizens working in the GCC member states are obliged to pay their shares of the subscription charges as of the first of January 2007.
He further said the insurance protection law has already been enforced in the GCC members as from the beginning of last year except Qatar which will start applying it early this year 2007 either on the gulf citizens working in Qatar or the Qatari citizens working in the other GCC members.
