Busted: Expat gang which forced cleaners to beg SR500 a day

JEDDAH: The Asir municipality has arrested a gang run by Arab expatriates who forced the cleaners in their region to beg for money from passers-by in Abha, in violation of the regulations, a media report said on Wednesday. According to sources, the expatriates worked in a cleaning company as supervisors, but they took advantage of their positions as supervisors and forced the cleaners to earn money illegally, thus neglecting their entrusted jobs. Following the intensive monitoring, the secretariat managed to arrest the heads of the gang by ambushing and catching them at work. The secretariat subsequently fired them and canceled their contracts. The gang that turned the cleaners into beggars at traffic lights, road junctions and public places obliged the workers to earn about SR500 before he or she could be relieved of their work for the day. The gang also granted those who earned more money through begging to take a few days rest, and threatened those who do not deliver the required amount of money with expulsion from work. Mohammad Sabran, supervisor for hygiene and environmental sanitation at Asir municipality, said the secretariat would be following up on the work of the expatriates to ensure that they take the regulations seriously and do not conduct illegal work again. On the supervisory side, the department of cleaning at the secretariat implemented a string of measures to boost the efficiency of the cleaning and hygiene system, including improving the changing of work shifts, following up on the entrance and exit of workers to their camps, boosting the surveillance tours to follow up on the field teams inside the neighborhoods, making sure that the supervisory apparatus affiliated with the contractor is doing its assigned tasks and that workers do not withdraw from their locations and perform their jobs. During the last seven months, five members of the supervisory apparatus were fired and excluded from supervision work after it was proven that they neglected their jobs. -arabnews