|
Leader calls for shake-up in United Arab Emirates
Real estate news By Matthew Brown
October 5, 2007
SHEIKH Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, envisions his country as a world-class financial hub run by Emiratis. Government financial support undermines that goal. All 800,000 Emirati citizens get free education and health care, and subsidised utilities. Emirati men can claim free land and interest-free loans to build homes. Other benefits include a $A21,000 payment towards wedding costs.
The handouts, based on traditions of royal patronage dating back centuries, now discourage citizens from working, academics say. Expatriates outnumber Emiratis and dominate fields such as banking, law and technology. The quandary for Sheikh Mohammed is how to reduce the culture of dependence without alienating his people. "The relationship between work and income is broken," says Kenneth Wilson, Dubai-based director of the Economic and Policy Research Unit at Zayed University, a school for Emirati women that opened in 1998. "That's unlikely to change until the Government starts trying to give incentives to work in the private or corporate sector."
The average male Emirati receives benefits worth about 204,000 dirhams ($A62,600) a year, according to the university's research. Khalid Saeed, 30, is building a villa on a 1400 square-metre plot of land he received free from the Government. Mr Saeed, who has a bachelor's degree from UAE University and a master's from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, is living with his parents until his villa is built. His parents' is on a 3700-square-metre plot, and has enough room for Mr Saeed, his wife and three daughters, as well as his brother and his wife. Rooms at the back are rented out to Asian workers.
Send tips or a Letter to the Editor to editor@updatere.com
|
