Sending the foreigners home

The sacking of foreign civil servants may become a regional trend. AMID unrest in the Gulf, the authorities in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have in recent years sought to give more public-sector jobs to local citizens. But this drive towards “Emiratisation”, a policy launched three decades ago, may be accelerating. On July 4th the General Secretariat of the Executive Council (GSEC), Abu Dhabi’s top policy-making body, which reports to the ruling council under Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince, fired almost all its foreign staff. Some 60-70 people are thought to have got the chop, including many of the emirate’s most efficient senior civil servants. The GSEC is presumably confident it can fill the vacuum with Emiratis already on its staff. But foreigners working for the government will be twitchy, as Emiratisation speeds up. Read more...