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Post by dreams12 on Aug 29, 2013 13:56:21 GMT
My Saudi visa got approved today. However, I have two questions to ask.
1) When I asked my Indian agent when they would hand over the passport to me, I was told that they would hand over the passport only at the time of my departure to Saudi.
Can anyone please share their experience while coming to Saudi? Is this practice followed for employees from US/ Canada / UK or other asian countries?
2) When do we get the Aramco Badge number? Do we get the number before we land in Saudi?
Do we get some temporary ID card from Aramco?
I am going to resign from my present job by next week and would be thankful if someone could answer the above questions.
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Post by Guiness10 on Aug 29, 2013 14:30:57 GMT
I have a visa but am still awaiting BI and Medical. My passport was sent straight back to me. My relocation agent told me I could have the badge number now if I wanted to as it is issued when you accept the job offer (I am in the UK) good luck with the move  |
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Post by dreams12 on Aug 29, 2013 15:27:48 GMT
Thanks. I guess it depends on the nationality and the agent. Also, I have heard that once you are in Saudi, the employer keeps the passport with them and only gives it at the time of vacation. Does Aramco follow the same practice? Are we allowed to keep the passports with ourselves once we are in Saudi. |
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Post by vpainter on Aug 30, 2013 2:50:26 GMT
When we first came over the Aramco passport office wanted to keep our passports. I told them we were going to Bahrain. They gave them to me. We have kept them ever since and they haven't tried to keep the again.
I do not know if this applies to all nationalities and GC's working for Aramco.
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Post by GroveWanderer on Aug 31, 2013 12:13:22 GMT
In most countries in the world (to the best of my knowledge) a passport is considered to be the property of the government that issued it and should never be handed over to, nor held by an unauthorised party. Obviously, if you are applying for a visa and an agent is handling that application for you, you need to hand your passport over to them for as long as it takes to process the visa on your behalf.
However, once the visa is issued, there is no reason (that I know of) why they would need to keep your passport.
And while it has been common practice in the kingdom for companies to hold onto their employees' passports there is no legal basis for this, either in Saudi Arabia nor in any other country that I am aware of.
As vpainter said, Saudi Aramco used to want to hold on to their employees' passports but since there is no legal basis for this, if you request your passport and choose to hold on to it, there is nothing they can do to stop you.
One of the contractors in my office just had an argument with his company, who wanted to hold on to his passport. He challenged them to provide any official reason why they should be enled to do this and eventually, since they were unable to find anything to justify this, they had to hand his passport back to him.
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