Dubai Dreams Sour – Expats forced to skip and Oil spills continue

The global downturn has turned dreams to nightmares for many expats in Dubai. Dubai developers are shedding staff as fast as orders and projects are canceled. Unfortunately, what this means for many is a hasty retreat from the country. As soon as a redundancy notice is issued, work visas are canceled, which means one month to get out of the country.

It is hard to guesstimate exactly how many are being let go, but if the “official” figures are anything to go by – thousands a week. Hundreds of vehicles are being abandoned at Dubai airport, apparently by people unable to pay the leases or loans after being fired. According to a senior police official, 3,241 cars were claimed by the banks in Dubai, compared to 1,450 cars the previous year – a 123 per cent increase. These people are colloquially know as “skips.”

Damac are refusing to pay severence packages, along with many other developers. There is a rather tortuous legal process to complain about this to the authorities – Help can be found here. But it is fair to say that with no income, a withdrawn visa and mandatory daily fines for over staying. most are likely to “skip.” Employers are obliged to inform the employees bank that a redundancy notice has been issued and also obliged to inform the government so that any visas may be withdrawn.

Dubai seems determined to turn itself into a wasteland of half-built developments in the desert. The only thing propping up their fragile economy was the vast amount of bored ex-pats wives shopping. Not only are they dismissing the pool of skilled labor in the country, they are practically kicking them out with instructions never to return. It won’t be long before Dubai is back to being a money laundering haven for pirates. Only this time the pirates will be multinational banking conglomerates.

The National reports that the UAE is apparently also determined to pollute their beaches as fast as possible. An oil slick was reported on the UAE’s east coast once a month on average last year. Many of the passing tankers are on their way to Fujairah Port, the second-largest refueling facility in the world.

Tankers that hold the waste from cleaning their own tanks until they find a place to dump it are breaking the Federal Environment Law, and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, also known as Marpol, which the UAE signed.The only plant in the country that removes oil residue from tankers is struggling for business as the ships continue to illegally dump oil waste off the UAE coast.

The facility at Khorfakkan port in Sharjah is getting only half the work it could handle. Full story.