JEDDAH: A Shoura Council member has launched an appeal for women to drive because of the difficulty and costs faced by citizens to recruit foreign drivers, according to a local media report on Thursday.

Speaking during a discussion on the Labor Ministry’s draft recruitment pact with Chad, Sultan Al-Sultan said: “Why not create an environment for women to drive instead of waiting to recruit drivers from another country and then discover they cannot drive, not to mention the financial costs involved,” he said.

He said the current situation did not make sense if women are only allowed to drive in a car with a mahram. “Then why do we allow them to go to work and on errands in the company of foreign drivers?“

He also wondered why recruitment was stopped from certain countries whose citizens had worked successfully in the Kingdom. He claimed the national committee for recruitment was determining the nationalities of those recruited, which had created further problems for citizens.

Al-Sultan further argued that it was a mistake to recruit from African countries. “We should not forget that the Saudi community went through some terrifying and frightening experiences at the hands of (people from) one African country,” he said.

Other Shoura members agreed with Al-Sultan on hiring from this African country. Nasser Al-Daoud said: “From my experience the workers from this particular country are involved in terrorist and criminal actions.”

Assaf Abu Thunain, head of the Shoura’s management and human resources committee, said: “Why is the country reconsidering recruitment from this country and allowing them to return to the Kingdom ...”

He said the Ministry of Interior has statistics showing the number of crimes committed by citizens of this country.