Government officials were forced to fend off a barrage of complaints from angry business owners during a forum on private sector development in Bahrain.

Tamkeen, the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) hosted the event at the BCCI headquarters, Sanabis.

Jointly organised by Tamkeen and the BCCI, it aimed to discuss enhancing the private sector.

Lectures by representatives from all three entities were given to debate the key issues including the challenges facing the private sector and strategies undertaken by Tamkeen.

However, when the floor was opened for questions several small- and medium-size business owners took the chance to voice their anger at the labour fees imposed on them for employing foreign workers.

Some also held up banners questioning the validity of Tamkeen and the LMRA, while one silently waved a Bahraini flag throughout the event.

Businessmen have staged a number of protests outside the LMRA's Sanabis headquarters in recent months, the latest of which took place on May 16.

They also called for an investigation into the performance of the LMRA and later marched from its Sanabis headquarters to the nearby BCCI, which also includes the Tamkeen offices.

The latter has been tasked with using a foreign worker tax to train Bahrainis and provide them with job opportunities, which protesters describe as 'theft'.

'The LMRA's shortcomings are really hurting us,' said business owner Nader Allawy.

'They keep talking big about curbing illegal workers but all they really do is head procedures that are against the constitution.'

Business owner Hisham Matar accused Tamkeen and BCCI of throwing the businessmen's money left and right without caring at all about them or even approaching them.

'You don't know anything about what our problems are,' he stated.

'All you do is take our money and say you are doing plans and then nothing happens.

'We have to swallow our pride and keep approaching over and over again and we don't get help.

'We've resorted to protests and gone through meetings and nothing is happening - even at this forum today.

'The money spent on this forum, even for the lunch and breakfast, is coming out of our pockets.

'We don't want anything from you, just stop taking our money and leave us alone and if you want to really help then you should include us in the right way instead of excluding us.'

The BCCI uses such forums to hear the opinions of businessmen and deliver their worries and hopes to the governmental bodies concerned, said BCCI first deputy chairman Ibrahim Zainal.

'I think that we are really working hard to do this,' he said. 'Executive decisions are, however, made by each entity itself.'

The training of Bahrainis was one of Tamkeen's biggest focuses, according to chief executive Abdulelah Al Qassimi.

'When we support Bapco or Gulf Air and other such places it makes it possible for more Bahrainis to work there and gain high salaries,' he said.

'Do you want our children with BD500-600 or be pilots with BD1,200?'

Al Qassimi denied that the expatriate worker fees were too high, since they included many services.

'We are transparent, our annual report comes out every year and it includes everything,' he said.

'The money coming from the private sector used to go to the government and now 80 per cent of the money goes back into the private sector.'

More than 5000 small- to medium-size businesses have benefited from Tameekn's schemes and 12,000 Bahrainis have been trained in the last year, said Tamkeen representative Ahmed Shahin.

'This proves that we are doing our job.'

But despite their claims, business owners were disappointed by the forum, said Allawy.

'A lot of people left because of how disorganised the sessions were,' he told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN).

'It was not beneficial and their answers were redundant and not precise.

'We are not happy and we definitely did not benefit because we were not given any direct answers.'

It is impossible to scrap the labour fees and so it is best to seek practical solutions such as extending support to losing establishments or those hit hard by labour market decisions, said BCCI chairman Dr Essam Fakhro.

Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, he said the experience is still new and it is premature to give a judgement in just two years.-TradeArabia News Service