Indian Nurses take up jobs in U.K., USA, Germany. Saudi Arabia pushing ahead with Saudiaziation to control unemployment. UAE concerned about Demographic imbalance. Oman-- model for other GCC countries. Bahrain to find job for unemployed youth Nearly 300 killed in Kenya due to malaria epidemic SOMALIA: TNG and judiciary clash over amputation sentence India's Foreign Direct Investment performance impressive: Maran. Over 11,000 new residential units coming up in Dubai Qatar Telecom sign multimillion deal with Motorola for GSM Network Women's stand-off with Chevron-Texaco in day four GCC nations efforts to replace 10 million expatriate workers with local citizens.
Dubai -- July 12, 2002. Various GCC countries, mainly Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain are intensifying job creation policies to arrest the growing unemployment among the youth, which constitute nearly 50 per cent of their population. Unemployment is one of the serious problems haunting the governments of these countries and replacing large number of foreign workers with the GCC nationals will ensure that there is no social unrest caused by unemployment. Since population growth has been largely uncontrolled in the six GCC economies, these countries which had severe shortage of skilled manpower, are finding it difficult to employ the unskilled youth.
More than two million GCC nationals, in the age group of 20 plus, are unemployed . Jassim Al Saadoun, a Kuwaiti economic expert told Gulf News that there is no alternative for the GCC countries but to replace expatriates with local workers and press the private sector to give priority to nationals. "Unemployment problem in the GCC countries started in the late 1980s when oil prices lost nearly half their real value. When the domestic economy was growing at 15 per cent per annum, against a population growth of four per cent during the oil boom, the current single digit growth rate is insufficient to cope up with the increasing demand for jobs," said the report.
According to the Arab League statistics, the combined population of six GCC countries is estimated to have gone up from 6.5 million in 1985 to 19.2 million in 1990 --about 29 per cent growth. However, the combined Gross Domestic Product of the GCC increased marginally by 15 per cent from $156 billion to $179 billion. According to a report in the Gulf News, when the GCC population increased by 26.6 per cent to 30.9 million in the year 200, the corresponding growth in GDP was 43 per cent to $320 billion from $223 billion --mainly due to a surge in international oil price. As most GCC states are aggressively following privatise plans, experts predict large scale job losses.
Saudi Arabia pushing ahead with Saudiaziation to control unemployment.
Indian workers in Arabian deserts to face dark future.
In Saudi Arabia, the most populated GCC member, the government has already stepped up a drive to find jobs for its citizens by restricting 22 job categories for the Saudis.A Saudi economist Ihsan bu Hlaika told Gulf News that the the Saudi economy is able to absorb nearly 160,000 jobs every year only if 100,000 expatriate workers are relaced with Saudi nationals. It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 foreigners employed in the Saudi public sector. Expatriates constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total workforce in the private sector.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has reserved 22 more job categories for nationals A circular issued by the Social Affairs and Labor Minister Ali Al-Namlah instructed labor offices across the Kingdom not to authorize recruitment of expatriates in the 22 sectors --administrative managers and their assistants, procurement mangers, secretaries, car showroom salesmen and public relations jobs. In another measure the Haj and Umrah offices will be manned only by Saudi employees.
The announcement said Prince Naif, minister of interior and head of the Manpower Council, has approved the recommendation to this effect of the fifth meeting of the Regional Council of Trustees and secretary-general of the council. Dr. Abdul-Wahed ibn Khalid Al-Humaid, secretary-general of the council, said the decision applies to some 600 Haj and several hundred Umrah offices employing thousands of expatriates. He said Prince Naif’s approval came as an additional incentive to job-seeking Saudis who will now replace foreign workers in the Haj and Umrah offices.
The Kingdom, where unemployment among nationals is estimated at around 20 percent, has in the past few years reserved at least 13 job sectors for Saudis. Last year, the Kingdom banned expatriates under 40 from working in hundreds of jewelry shops as a prelude to Saudizing this sector within two years.Last year, two labour laws were implemented to order corner shops to hire only Saudi. Accordingly private businesses employing more than 20 people have to employ 30 percent nationals in the total work force. This percentage must go up by five percent every year.
The Kingdom has set up an apex Manpower Development Fund last year to help Saudis get employment in the private sector. The fund is financed by charging each expatriate worker in the private sector SR100 every year. The fund collected about SR400 million in the first 10 months of its establishment. The money is spent on training Saudis as well as paying part of their salary in the private sector for a few years. Similar job funds are created by governments in other GCC countries by taxing expatriate workers. The Saudi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has been recommending higher salaries for trained Saudi workers.
The ministry argues that the expats siphon SR70 billion out of the country annually. This growing volume of remittance will drop sharply, once government agencies work together to find more jobs for nationals in the private sector. There are more than 5.2 million foreign workers in the private sector, representing 96 percent of the work force compared to 2,12,000 in the government sector, representing only four percent. Saudi manpower constitute only four percent of the total workforce. The plan is to employ 817,300 Saudis during the current seventh Five Year Plan (2000-2005). Expatriates are employed in industrial, automobile, tourism and banking sectors. A majority of jobs in the construction sector is held by expats. They also man thousands of offices across the Kingdom providing Haj and Umrah service.
A study conducted by the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA) shows that Saudis comprise only 3.3 percent in the construction, 2.2 in the manufacturing, 8.1 percent in trade, 6.8 percent in services and 5.2 percent in the business sectors in Riyadh. The share of Saudis in public sector is 87 percent.
Another study by , Dr. Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Ghaith and Mansour ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Mashooq on behalf of the Institute of Public Administration says that the country will need to hire expatriate labor for decades to come. They have listed 17 reasons hindering the employment of Saudis in the private sector - lack of English language ability, lower salaries and fewer incentives given by the private sector. The small and medium sized businesses in the GCC countries, which are run on wafer thin profit margins, may find it difficult to sustain business employing local citizens. Compared to the very low salary offered to the expatriate workers, the national workers have to be paid almost double the salary and other benefits. Hence the resistance to employ local citizens has been mainly from the local businessmen --big and small.
UAE concerned about Demographic imbalance.
Even the UAE, a relatively small country with small population has also serious unemployment problems. According to a special committee created by the cabinet to study the labour market, nearly 180,000 companies registered in the UAE are only post box companies, created by an unholy nexus of locals and expatriates to engage in buying and selling visas. According to the UAE Labour and Social Affairs Ministry, only 48.6 per cent of the 350,000 companies registered with the Ministry are active companies. The rest are inactive or could be classified as imaginary institutions. This means that their 540,000 workers are in fact unemployed. All these companies are created just to get job permits from the UAE Government, sell it to expatriates in Asian countries and make money.
"Because of the differences in language, traditions and culture, the presence of a large number of non-Arab expatriate workers has more negative than positive effects in the GCC," the Arab League said in a study. "In the economic field, they are the main reason for the inflation in budget allocations for services including health and education and the deficit in the external financial balances given their huge remittances to their home countries.
"As for social effects, they have spread new languages and new terms, new religions, cultures and traditions, the increase in their number has also prompted GCC states to boost security spending to maintain stability and security," the GCC report said. The UAE Government is more concerned about the demographic structure of the country, which is dominated by Asian expatriate workers. Apart from finding employment to the UAE citizens, the government is keen to control the number of expatriates. It is also planning to employ more and more GCC nationals, especially from the neighbouring Oman. A number of UAE companies have set up base at Buraimi, in the boarder area between Oman and the UAE.
Oman-- model for other GCC countries.
The Sultanate of Oman has been a model for other GCC countries to implement localisation drive to control unemployment. A country with an expatriate workforce of half a million, the Sultanate has already succeeded in replacing expatriates from the banking and government sectors. It has successfully replaced expatriates who were working in driving pick up vans, water tanks, cooking gas transportation, school buses and even in health care.
In Oman nearly 30,000 grocery shops employing around 70,000 to 80,000 expatriates are the next target of Omanisation. According to a Businessmen's Council official, the long term plan is to execute this major Omanisation task. Each grocery shop employs around two to three people There would be close to 80,000 opportunities for the government to Omanise," said Khalil bin Abdullah Al Khonji, secretary to the Businessmen's Council told the Times of Oman.
Under the Sanad programme, Omanis can establish themselves with a small capital of RO5,000 soft loans with two per cent interest. According to theplan, the Sanad programme will help Omanise the grocery shops. Omanis are expected to start their own grocery shops and keep their own people there. Omanising in the grocery sector is relatively easy as the jobs per se did not require too much training or skills. According to Khalil Al Khonji Omanisation seminars in Saham and Ibri passed special resolutions to Omanise all the government-owned cafeteria shops and prevented expatriates from renting, operating and managing cafeterias or similar set ups.
The first recommendations taken at the Saham and Ibri seminar noted that the government and the private sector would jointly work on the Omanisation percentage. The other important aspect of the seminar was that a decision that the government would consult with the private sector on all aspects of the Omanisation process. Any new step on the Omanisation front will be taken only after consultation with the private sector. There is a dearth of trained people. Oman has employed more than half a million expatriates. The past experience in Omanisation was not so successful and it was not appreciated by the private sector because it was affecting the productivity and quality of service. Even in a government sector like nursing, if you go and Omanise at one go, your service sector would be disrupted."
Khalil Al Khonji also noted that in future any company that manages to obtain the stipulated percentage of Omanisation would be able to recruit any employees from any other country, without any hassle. There are around 70,000 housemaids; approximately 60,000 to 70,000 expatriates holding farming jobs, both of which we cannot Omanise. This is the reason why we say focus on AGCC. "We should also try to export professional and trained Omanis, and import expatriates whenever and wherever necessary. So, we are proud to export trained and skilled Omanis. There is nothing wrong with that, but we are against exporting unskilled Omani workforce, as it will serve in creating a bad name for Oman. "I hope we will be in the future exporting highly educated and highly skilled and qualified Omanis. The borders are always open to the educated." A new labour law is likely to be issued in the first quarter of next year.
The Ministry of Manpower has signed a Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) with Oman Society for Petroleum Services (OPAL) to train 1,000 Omanis for jobs in the oil and gas sector. The new training programme will identify vacancies and training needs in the oil and gas industry and select the appropriate training providers. A number of companies have already committed to offer employment for 968 OPAL trainees, including Galfar (300 jobs), Bahwan Engineering Company (200 jobs), Stag Enterprises (80 jobs) and Al Mahrikria Travo (13 jobs).
Dr Muneer bin Mohammed Sultan al Maskari, Under-Secretary for Vocational Training at the Ministry of Manpower, said in a recent interveiw that the signatory company will be responsible for training and employment of Omanis, he added."This is a new policy of the ministry to create a job training partnership between the ministry and private sector companies," Al Maskari said. The MoU is a model for other sectors like construction and automotive.There are about 14,000 jobs which can be Omanised in the next five years in the oil and gas sector where the existing level of Omanisation is about 33 per cent. The oil and gas sector's target is to achieve 70 per cent Omanisation in five years, Al Maskari said.The OPAL members are companies working in the oil and gas sector, including oil and gas producers, refiners, marketing companies, contractors and suppliers.The oil and gas industry employs a wide range of technical and services jobs, which range from unskilled to highly skilled. OPAL aims to get unskilled and semi-skilled jobs filled very quickly with short training programmes covering the basic skills required, safety and work ethics.Local businessmen who have been reluctant to recruit locals have realized that to get government contracts they need to recruit more Omanis.
Bahrain to find job for unemployed youth
Bahrain has given around 50,000 illegal foreign workers six months to rectify their situation or leave, a cabinet minister said in remarks published yesterday. The workers, mainly unskilled labourers from the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines, represent around a sixth of the 307,000-strong workforce in Bahrain. Labour and Social Affairs Minister Abdel Nabi Al Shula told Al Ayam newspaper his ministry would block new work permits for foreigners unless there were no native workers available for the job. Official figures released in April show that 9,670 nationals, or 3.1 per cent of the island state's workforce, were unemployed
Kuwait --Qatar
Indian Nurses take up jobs in U.K., USA, Germany.
The localisation drive has its positive and negative impact. The Gulf countries have been largely dependent on the Asian expatriate workers in the health care system. Many hospitals in the region employ large number of nursers, paramedical staff and doctors from the Asian countries, especially India. The government of a particular GCC country has announced long term plans to localise the nursing job. However, expatriate nurses, who are worried about the long term employment prospects started looking for new job openings in foreign countries. Thanks to the renewed demand for Asian nursing professionals in western countries lik the UK, USA and Scandinavian countries, there has been an exodus of well experienced nursers from the Gulf hospitals.
In western countries, they get more than double the salary offered by the best Government hospital in the Gulf. In order to arrest the outflow of nurses from the Gulf countries, the government banned advertisement of nursing and medical job openings in local media and controlled the recruiting agents. In one instance, the local police went to a local hotel where recruitment process was progressing, and took away the labour card of all the candidtes --mainly Keralites. They asked the recruiting agents to leave the country.
However, things are still not within their control. Thanks to the Internet, many nurses found it easy to circumvent the local rules and download application forms from a particular website, specialised in nursing and medical jobs, send applications by email and attend interviews in a neighbouring country. The recruiting agents get such interviews taped in video cassetes and send to the hospital authorities in UK and USA. In the last two-three months alone, at least 300 Keralite nurses have left one Gulf country and joined UK hospitals. It may be recalled that compared to the high salary and perks offered to Asian expatriate medical staff, the health ministry has slashed salary by almost half is now thinking of enhancing the same to arrest the outflow of experienced nurses. The new nurses recruited from India are normally posted in remote hospitals, with less facilities, where the locally trained citizens refuse to work. Even though many local citizens are trained every year to replace expatriate nurses, the locals stop working after their marriage. Recently the UAE government has enhanced salary and perks of nursing staff.
The Omani private sector is unable to employe 40,000 or 50,000 graduates that come out every year. There are around 10 million expatriates in the GCC and there is big potential for Omanis to work in the AGCC. The labour rules in the AGCC states are greatly helpful and Omanis are considered to be AGCC citizens. Recent decision by the GCC Governments will ensure that all the GCC citizens are treated at par in the member countries. The plan is to recruit GCC nationals in the civil services of member countries.
Nursing, tourism-related, computers and banking jobs are very important, especially when Omanisation has worked very successfully in these areas. "We should therefore focus on these jobs and also concentrate on putting more schools/universities, etc in Buraimi as the graduates can then familiarise with their potential workplaces of the future. "But if you put it here, it will not serve the purpose as the potential job market in the AGCC states would be then too far. But if there is, for example, a nursing institute in Buraimi, you will see after two or three years that the students will be visiting the hospitals in that area; this can work with other sectors like tourism too.
Nearly 300 killed in Kenya due to malaria epidemic
NAIROBI, 11 July (IRIN) - The Kenyan authorities have given details of an outbreak of highland malaria, which has killed a total of 294 people since June.In a statement issued on Thursday, the government said it had purchased and dispatched anti-malarial drugs, costing approximately US $500,000, to affected districts.
In the statement, Medical Services Minister Hussein Maalim Mohammed said at least eight districts, which lie in the malaria transmission belt in the country's Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces, had been severely affected by the epidemic. A total of 158,292 cases have been reported since June.
He listed the most affected districts as Nandi, Kericho, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia and Kisii. According to the minister, the affected districts lie in an "unstable malaria transmission" zone.
"The malaria epidemic has been precipitated by heavy rains that have been witnessed in the recent past in the region, which have favoured increased malaria transmission," Mohammed said.
"Communities living in these regions are not commonly exposed to malaria infection and at times of increased malaria transmission, all age groups are affected - hence the explosive number of cases being recorded."An epidemic response task force has been set up at both the central and district levels. Earlier in the week, the government sent out an appeal to donors to provide technical and material support to help curb the epidemic. So far, favourable responses have been received from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Red Cross Society, Mohammed said.
Press reports have carried criticism of the government's response saying it was "too late". "The government is talking of vector control after the epidemic has already hit...Vector control is a preventive measure that should be maintained at all times," said a medical researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, according to the 'Daily Nation'.
Mohammed said the current malaria policy - based on WHO's 'Roll Back Malaria' global initiative - was still effective, but the ministry was still looking for resources to "scale up" its implementation.
Women's stand-off with Chevron-Texaco in day four
LAGOS, 11 July (IRIN) - A stand-off caused by women protesters at a major oil facility of Chevron-Texaco in Nigeria entered the fourth day on Thursday, with the women demanding talks with the head of the company’s operations in the country.
Police and army boats patrolled the waters off the Escravos export terminal, but the situation in the facility remained unchanged as the blockade of the air strip, the helicopter pad and the dock continued. Local newspapers said more women had joined the original 150 that on Monday initiated demands for jobs for their children, swelling the number to about 2,000.
More than 700 expatriate and Nigerian employees of the Chevron-Texaco were trapped in the facility surrounded by the Atlantic ocean, swamps and creeks. Aircraft have been unable to land and boats cannot dock. Company officials have continued negotiations with the protesters and leaders of their nearby Arutan and Ugborodo communities.
"Talks have continued but the situation has not changed from yesterday," Wole Agunbiade, spokesman at the company’s headquarters in Lagos, told reporters.
Officials said the security forces were under strict orders not to attack the unarmed women to avoid complicating what already appears a very delicate situation. But the Nigerian government and Chevron-Texaco would be concerned about the likely adverse impact on oil exports if the situation was not resolved quickly.
Most of the crude oil produced by Chevron-Texaco in Nigeria is exported from the Escravos terminal. The company’s US $400 million Escravos Gas Plant is also located at the facility.
Disruptions of oil operations are common in the Niger Delta oil region, where impoverished local people accuse oil companies and their government partners of neglect despite the huge oil wealth pumped from their land. But this is the first such action taken exclusively by women.
"We will no longer take this nonsense, this is the beginning of the trouble they have been looking for," Anunu Uwawah, a leader of the protesters, was quoted as saying by the Punch newspaper. Chevron-Texaco operates a joint venture in which the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation holds the majority stake.
Over 11,000 new residential units coming up in Dubai
Over 11,000 new residential units, including villas and apartments are coming up in the next few years in Dubai with Emaar and Union Properties leading the development. This would be in addition to the existing 145,363 housing units in 55,659 buildings that are catering to 862,387 Dubai population, according to government statistics.Dubai Municipality will start developing Al Jaddaf area by the end of 2003 which will have 6,819 housing units in the locality. Dubai Marina will accommodate over 150,000 people in luxury apartment complexes and villas surrounded by waterfront near Mina Seyahi.Among the 145,363 housing units till early last year in Dubai, 141,304 are urban and 4,059 are located in rural areas, while 125,221 units were housing and the rest 20,142 are of commercial nature.Among the 55,659 buildings, Dubai has 22,979 villas and 9,253 are Arabic houses, 5,868 units are of one and two- storeyed while 4,236 are over two levels.
Qatar Telecom sign multimillion deal with Motorola for GSM Network
Doha --July 12, 2002 Qatar Telecom has signed a $25 million Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications network expansion deal with Motorola's Global Telecom Solutions Sector (GTSS). The GSM network, to be installed across Qatar's countrywide wireless system, includes Motorola's Horizon macro GSM 900/1800 MHz base stations, which will enable the telecom company to provide its cellular subscribers with enhanced coverage and features. Commercial deployment began in June 2002.. The company recorded 323.2 million rials ($88.7 million) in revenues in the first quarter of 2002. The company's net profit increased by 24.7 percent during the same period, reaching QR 269.3 million, reported the Gulf Times.
In Qatar, the fastest growing Gulf economy, demand for international telephony services is increasing. Between January and March 2002, the volume increased by 21 percent in the first three months of 2002 compared to last year corresponding period, generating 16 percent increase in revenues. Qatar Telecom was established in 1998, after the Qatar Public Telecommunications Corporation merged with the Qatar National Telephone Service, Cable and Wireless and the Tel.
India's Foreign Direct Investment performance impressive: Maran.
India's performance on the foreign direct investment (FDI) front has been both promising and reassuring with FDI inflows into the country registering a record high of US $ 4.06 billion (net of ADRs/GDRs) during the financial year 2001-02, which is about 65% higher than the FDI inflows received during the preceding year 2000-01 and further, this growth is being sustained during the current year 2002 as well, Murasoli Maran, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, said while chairing the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry here today.
The Minister said that FDI inflows continued to post an impressive growth during 2002 with cumulative inflows during January-May 2002 (net of ADRs/GDRs) estimated at US $ 1.89 billion as against US $ 1.18 billion received during the corresponding period of 2001, thereby registering a substantial growth of 60%. Stressing that this had been achieved in a time when there has been a steep decline in global FDI inflows, Maran said that "this is highly reassuring as it is a reflection of the investor confidence as also an acknowledgement of the progressive reforms being carried out by the government". The Minister quoted from The Economist of London which in its recent issue had observed that "India is reforming more than it often gets credit for. Last year's record inflow of FDI may be an acknowledgement of this".
Maran announced that a Committee comprising representatives of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion had been step up for adoption of the international reporting/computation system for FDI and said that the Committee would complete its work shortly. This has been necessitated by the fact that FDI figures of India currently do not include reinvested earnings and other direct capital flows which form part of FDI as per the international practices of IMF. A recent study conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) had in fact said that adoption of international standards for computation of FDI would raise India's net annual FDI inflows to about US $ 8 billion, which would work out to roughly 1.7% of India's GDP, not far behind the 2% level achieved in China. The strong performance of FDI, the Minister said, was a result of recent policy initiatives taken by the government in terms of automatic entry, removal of caps in most sectors etc., as also the various investment facilitation measures contributing to improved investors confidence. The Foreign Investment Implementation Authority (FIIA) had been activated and on an average about 2000 responses in a year were being given to investors and potential investors, he said.
Interacting with the members on various issues, Maran agreed with a suggestion mooted by Kapil Sibal that the government should initiate a dialogue with the opposition parties to evolve a common agenda encompassing key issues such as labour reforms so that the country could achieve faster economic growth through a collective approach. Besides Sibal, other members who participated were P.C. Thomas, M. Master Mathan, Brahmanand Mandal, George Eden, R.S. Gavai and Akhilesh Das. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Dr. Raman Singh, Ministers of State for Commerce and Industry, V. Govindarajan, Secretary (IPP), N.L. Lakhanpal, Secretary & DGFT and other senior officers of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry were also present. Members called for bold initiatives on the agriculture front while underlining the primacy of agriculture in the country's economy; exploration of new export markets notably Africa and greater involvement of States and agencies in the formulation of trade and economic policies.P.C. Thomas and Master Mathan and others highlighted the difficulties faced by growers due to continued to fall in commodity prices including items like tea and stressed the need to ensure remunerative returns to growers by exploring new export markets for tea, rubber etc. The Committee was informed that following a meeting with RBI and the Department of Commerce rescheduling of loans had been approved for coffee including 2 year moratorium on payment of principal while RBI had directed the concerned banks to come out with a similar package for tea which was expected to be finalised by this month end. A 5-year Medium Term Export Strategy for tea was being prepared by Tea Board through M/s. Accenture based on a study of competitiveness of Indian tea.
On the country's economic performance, Maran referred to RBI estimates of the likely GDP growth of 6% to 6.5% during 2002-03 in comparison with the growth of 5.4% in 2001-02 and 4% in 2000-01, and NCAER survey showing that business confidence index had gone up by 10.8% this year. He said that the 5-year Exim Policy had been formulated with the objective of raising India's share of international trade to at least 1% from the current level of 0.67% and special efforts had been made to encourage exports of more employment generating sectors like agriculture, SSIs etc., besides a series of steps to take Indian exports higher up the value chain. The process of involvement of state governments had also been strengthened with a substantial 10th Plan provision of as much as Rs.1725 crore. Giving an update on the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), the Minister said the Positra SEZ (Gujarat) had completed financial closure; Nangunery SEZ (Tamil Nadu) was about to take off with acquisition of land and financial closure; Dronagiri (Maharashtra) was in an advanced stage and in Kolkata, the gem & jewellery park at Manikanchan had been given the status of SEZ. In all, 13 SEZs had been set up so far.
Referring to the industrial scenario, the Minister informed that there had been an improvement in the production of the Six infrastructure industries, which reflected a growth of 5.8% in april-May 2002 as against only 1% in April-May 2001. "The growth rate in production is particularly noteworthy for Cement (10.1%), petroleum refinery products (8%) and finished steel (6.4%%). The Society for Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM) has also reported a quantum jump in May 2002, in the sales of motorcycles by 51% and of commercial vehicles by 44%. These two reflect the improved demand from rural areas and the growing demand for freight movement", Maran said.SOMALIA: TNG and judiciary clash over amputation sentence
NAIROBI, 11 July (IRIN) - The justice ministry of Somalia's Transitional
National Government (TNG) has opposed an amputation sentence handed down
to a convicted burglar by a regional court, TNG Information Minister
Abdirahman Ibbi told IRIN on Thursday.The Banadir regional court last month sentenced a man in his thirties to
have his right hand amputated after finding him guilty of stealing cash
and jewellery valued at over US $20,000 from Maryan Aweys, a prominent
doctor.The court had charged the man under Islamic (Shari'ah) law, which provides
for the amputation of limbs of individuals convicted of theft, a local
lawyer told IRIN. He said the man had admitted to the crime, and "was
sentenced to have his right hand amputated".But the TNG justice minister objected to the sentence, arguing that the
court had made a legal mistake "even under Shari'ah law", Ibbi said."Under Islamic law, the government has to assume full responsibility for
the welfare of the amputee, once the sentence is carried out", he said.The justice minister was quoted as saying his ministry was "in no
position" to assume this responsibility. The TNG argued that "under the
current political and economic conditions" in the country, "it would be a
miscarriage of justice to prosecute someone without fully guaranteeing his
rights under Islamic law".The government had asked the court to set aside the amputation sentence
and conduct a retrial of the accused under the "Somali penal code", Ibbi
added.If convicted under the Somali criminal code, the accused was "likely to
receive a two- to three-year sentence," the lawyer told IRIN.
