Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): Nearly two weeks after announcing Bahrain Youths Day, Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), a Bahrain Oil and Gas Holding Company headed by Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, announced job vacancies in India.

A period of less than two weeks was enough to unveil the falsity of the rhetoric of the king's son about the future and hopes of the country's young people, as if he is saying to them: the phone messages are for you and the jobs are for the Indians in national companies. 

The policy pursued by field marshal Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa's son in (foreignizing) the oil and gas companies is the same followed by the king's son. There is no change in employment policies in the oil sector, even if Nasser bin Hamad claims otherwise.

Employment announcements were published in Indian newspapers about vacancies for workers, technicians and engineers, with job interviews to be conducted in India, while thousands of Bahrainis are unemployed.

Bapco was quick to deny offering jobs in India, a kind of outsmarting or disregarding Bahrainis, because it knows that employment announcements are real and are for companies that it contracts with as part of new policies to exclude Bahrainis.

After 2011, as part of a broad policy of exclusion of Bahrainis enacted by the field marshal's son, Bapco went on to assign many tasks in the various production lines of private companies owned by powerful people.

These companies have brought hundreds of foreigners to work for the oil company. No figures or statistics are needed, any Bahraini working for the company can describe how the company turned into a foreign company where hundreds of Indians, Filipinos and Pakistanis occupy positions in the company Bahrainis used to occupy. 

The king's son should have declared a day for Indian youths, or called the street leading to the Bahrain refinery in their name, as long as he did not want to restore the stolen rights of young Bahrainis in employment.

Young Bahrainis do not care to name a day after them, if that will not change the reality of anything, as thousands of them are obliged to live under unemployment, poverty and frustration as foreigners enjoy the country's well-being.

Isn't oil their national wealth? Why would foreigners enjoy the benefits of Bahrain and deprive it`s citizens of them? Doesn't Nasser bin Hamad have the decision to change these policies? Or does he think speech festivals can raise hope?

"You feel bad when you see a foreigner who has just arrived to Bahrain coming to open a bank account, and then you discover that he works in Bapco with a salary of more than 1,000 dinars, while I only get half of his salary," says an employee at a Bahraini bank branch in Riffa.

In fact, this is not about the oil sector, but about many sectors, including education and health sectors. Dr. Ahmed Al-Areed, a member of the Shura Council, recently revealed that there are more than 400 unemployed doctors in Bahrain. 

Who's responsible for this mess? Bahraini youths' energies are disrupted while companies, hospitals and schools are teeming with foreigners.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of the youths whom Nasser bin Hamad has promised them with a bright future through telephone messages, while sending them practical messages saying that this country will be based on foreigners, not on its citizens.

Arabic Version