Poverty growing in Saudi Arabia

Despite being one of the world’s richest countries, millions of people in Saudi Arabia live in poverty, a new report say. Job-growth and welfare programs in Saudi Arabia have failed to keep pace with a booming population that has soared from 6 million in 1970 to 28 million today, according to the report published by the Washingtonpost and the Guardian. The report criticized Saudi royals for being more concerned with their wealth and the country’s image than with helping the poor. “The state hides the poor very well,” the report quoted Rosie Bsheer, a Saudi scholar who has written extensively on development and poverty. “The elite don’t see the suffering of the poor. People are hungry.” Media reports and private estimates suggest that between 2 million and 4 million of the country’s native Saudis live under the country’s poverty line, the report added. The report added that in Saudi Arabia, “poverty and anger over corruption continue to grow. Vast sums of money end up in the pockets of the royal family through a web of nepotism, corruption and cozy government contracts, according to Saudi and US analysts.” Most of the poor families in the Kingdom are “stateless” people who are not officially recognized as Saudi citizens, even though they were born in the country. “The United Nations estimates that there are 70,000 stateless people in Saudi Arabia, most of them descended from nomadic tribes whose traditional territory included parts of several countries,” the report added. This is while, Forbes magazine estimates Abdullah’s personal fortune at $18 billion, making him the world’s third-richest royal, behind the rulers of Thailand and Brunei. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter, with the black gold accounting for 90 percent of the country's exports.