What Is Happening To Us Now?

Dear All;

Has anybody out there read my books? See www.myownmajid.com

Yesterday Saturday January 25th 2014 – I visited CCC and met this nice British lady who was really surprised that there are in Oman Local Authors that write in English and also in serious books that make you think like Arab Management, Road Safety, Social, Economic, Political etc. topics! Brothers and Sisters Omanis and Friends Residents and Guests – what is happening to us in Oman now not to appreciate and value our own? Is it just bad hearts and Haassiyyds, or is it that we have eyes but cannot see, have ears but cannot hear and mouths but afraid to speak! Shocking and weird to say the least!

Maybe because we wear dishdashas and brown skinned!

In times of Oman today Sunday Beat Saleh Shaibany wrote about the Omani brain drain to rest GCC esp UAE and Qatar for better salaries etc. Allah God Help us all Ameen – See Below

The brain drain is mainly fully highly qualified experienced Omanis in especially  Oil and Gas – who get paid 3 times more outside Oman. Where is our Leadership? Don’t they know these things? And then every day more and more expatriates come in – and our own leave! We are not interested in new roads, railways and bridges – but how we get treated in our own very country! Sad and tragic really!

We need to deep soul search and self analyse ourselves – at least for the sake of our future, destiny and legacy – and for future generations. But I am really scared and worried…

Perhaps to venture a conspiracy theory – some Old Guards and The Expatriate Mafias want to destroy from within …and keep everyone down! Especially those who dare to now to open their mouths – or dare to now write! My columns got killed this way!

Maybe even the oil and gas corruption cases some of them may think or feel that they deserved more … and then stole this way? Conspiracy Theory?

My mind just ponders….!

See the article here – or appended below

http://www.timesofoman.com/News/Article-28760.aspx  

Brain drain could end up doing irreversible damage –

Sunday Beat – By Saleh Al Shaibany – Times of Oman – January 26th 2014

Muscat: The depressing reality is that Oman is beginning     to witness its human capital transferring to other countries for the simple     reason that the Sultanate cannot anymore satisfy the higher wages that its     skilled workers demand.

Talented local workers with years of experience are     looking for better paid jobs abroad leaving the country in a brain drain     zone. The gap they leave behind cannot be filled by graduates. The human     flight can do an irreversible damage on a long-term basis if employers     continue to pay low wages to its most experienced Omani staff.

And the problem is deeper than that. Oman is also losing     its new talents as well for greener pastures.

With the government investing so much money in     education and vocational training, the job opportunities need to match the     college and university leaving students’ expectations for wages. For the record, the Ministry of Finance has allocated OMR2.6 billion for education     this year, twice the budget allocated for the same sector last year. The  huge capital investment will need to translate into better paid jobs if we have to keep young talents right here at home.

Most of the Omanis who are leaving are emigrating to  other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the prime targets are the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. That means that we are losing professionals and skilled workers that the government has paid millions at different levels of training and education. The areas in which we now face the brain drain are in Information Technology (IT), medicine, the financial sector and academia. In a fledgling economy like Oman, we cannot leave     talent gaps and then hope that things will remain alright. Employers must     match the wages paid by our neighbours instead of hoping that someone from  abroad will fill these positions when Omanis vacate them. For that to     happen, attitudes must also change.

Top on the list is trusting local skills. Oman has become so dependent on importing talent and the mind set is now embedded deep among the employers that only foreign workers can do a better job. These employers are now being proved pleasantly wrong. While we shun our own  skills, the GCC states hold these in high esteem and companies there start to poach Omani talents. So where does it leave the huge effort of the     government which is spending about OMR4 billion a year on projects, trade subsidies and education to inject funds in the private sector? Yes, it does create jobs but now Omanis want to be paid enough to compensate for their talents.

It took 40 years to create a powerhouse of local skills. The ammunition of that powerhouse is better financial packages.     Omani managers know that they are worth much more across the border than here. In the UAE or in Qatar, a senior IT manager with 10 to     15 years of experience gets a monthly package of around OMR7,000.

Here,  they only get paid about OMR3,500. New doctors get a maximum of OMR700 per month in the Sultanate. They would get paid about OMR2,500 when they land  jobs in those two countries. One would say it is not exactly patriotism to abandon one’s country in its moment of need but better standard of living is what drives people these days.

The funny thing is that 20 years ago, Oman barely had     any experienced and skilled people to work in the high profile jobs in the private sector. It was natural to import these talents from different countries to push the wheel of development forward. It is a different scenario now. We have the right people now but we are beginning to export  local talents when it is mostly needed here. The trend is threatening to wipe out any advancement we made in the last two decades in the build up of skilled workforce.  The result, if we don’t watch out, is the loss of   senior managers to foreign bidders and that will give the Omanisation  process a severe knock.

It goes without saying that to continue to compete on     the global basis, Oman must invest on its local workers by paying them much more than the present wage scales if it wants to retain its skills.

END

Thank you Saleh, My Brother! Well said!