‘High Emirati staff rates should bring advantages’

Ali Al Nuaimi, FNC member for Ajman, has suggested that private companies that have high levels of Emiratisation should be given preferential treatment in the tender bidding processes.

Federal National Council member Ali Al Nuaimi, from Ajman, has submitted more questions for Tuesday’s session than any other member has for a single meeting before. Silvia Razgova / The National

ABU DHABI // Private companies with high percentages of Emirati staff should be given preferential treatment in bidding for tenders, an FNC member has suggested.

The idea from Ali Al Nuaimi (Ajman) is due to be discussed at Tuesday’s session of the FNC.

“If private companies have a high Emiratisation rate they should have the priority to win tenders,” Mr Al Nuaimi said.

He has submitted five questions to be debated in the session, the highest number from one member. Another issue he wants investigated is pension payments.

Mr Al Nuaimi said that in April there were delays in transferring pensions into retirees’ bank accounts, causing them much inconvenience.

Many pensioners had written postdated cheques based on the day they were supposed to receive their payments.

“So when the pensions were late, some of their cheques bounced and they faced fines from the banks,” Mr Al Nuaimi said.

“There was no coordination between the pensions authority and the banks. So my question is, what procedures were taken by the authority to avoid this from happening again?”

He said a new system was needed to deal with failures in pension payments.

Another question is about upgraded services of Emirates Post.

“There was an increase in postal fees so in exchange, when there is an increase in rates there should be an upgrade in services,” Mr Al Nuaimi said.

“So we would like to know what is their development plan because there shouldn’t be an increase in fees and no service improvement.”

He raised a question about free zones, saying that in 2008 the Cabinet agreed to set up an authority to oversee the more than 40 such areas in the country.

“But until now it has not been established. So we want to know as a follow up what has happened,” he said.

Mr Al Nuaimi said he wanted to be informed about Emiratisation in the insurance industry.

“We want to know what efforts the authority is putting to increase percentage of Emiratisation,” he said.

“There was a decision issued by the Cabinet in 2003 that Emiratisation rates should be 15 per cent and in this sector it is still below 8 per cent.

“This is since 2003, so there has been a lot of time to develop a strategy and come up with plans.”

The council will also discuss a draft law for auditors.

“Fifteen years have passed since the previous federal law concerning auditors and since then there have been many developments in the field,” said Mr Al Nuaimi.

“Accounting and auditing are two very important professions to the national economy. The economic crisis revealed a need to develop the standards that govern the profession of auditors and to apply corporate governance standards.

“The draft law is directly connected to the commercial companies law, which applies the same standards.”

The main areas include the rights of an auditor and penalties, identifying the party charged with monitoring service quality, the ethics of the profession and conditions for establishing auditing companies.