Currently working in Bahrain and as we are doing 12hr shifts, the company employs a taxi driver to take us the 27km to and from work rather than us trying to negotiate the roads and traffic when tired. Our drivers name is Waheed he is 50 years old and a retired police detective who left his job after 20 years of service on 68% of his former salary paid as a government pension. Apparently here you qualify after 20 years of working, he told me he can now work as much as he wants without paying any taxes and it does not affect his pension. He also receives 4 Dinah (A$15 per family member/mth to subsidise him to buy Aussie beef and A$100/mth rent subsidy) apparently he makes as much now as when he was working full time. To top it off he bought himself a Kia Carnival as a taxi and works when it suits him, I don't know what sort of car he has personally but he just bought his wife a brand new Mazda CX9 just to do her shopping. Girls here get paid a pension if they decide not to work that is at least until they get married when their husband becomes responsible for their upkeep, if their husband leaves them or passes away they are paid their pension again. As far as I can understand when my mate Waheed was working he paid no payroll taxes but had to contribute a certain percentage of his salary towards his retirement fund. If he passes away his wife is paid his pension for life if she passes away the kids are paid a percentage of it for life. Like all the countries that surround us Saudi, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait etc. they are very rich and no doubt we are helping them to get even richer every time we put fuel in our cars. Still couldn't live here though too bloody hot and humid last few days I have noticed that even the camels have been sweating By the way as I'm rostered off today I will be able to watch the State of origin live at 1pm on one of my 200 odd satellite TV channels.
Go the blues .....
Cheers BB
-- Edited by The Belmont Bear on Wednesday 12th of July 2017 12:20:41 PM
Is the Government Pension equivalent to our Government Superannuation (aka pension) if you were a Govt employee or is it simply an aged/retirement pension?
Not sure Rusty there is a fair bit being lot lost in the translation but "he" (I think he means the government) pays everyone a pension after working for 20 years, he says that the police and army guys get a % that is better than the normal which could be similar to our government superannuation. I'm sure that I am going to find out a lot more about everything Bahranian as I will be traveling with him for the next 4 weeks. He is an extremely friendly guy like most Bahranians and likes to chat that is between his one handed mobile phone calls doing 120kph. What really surprised me though is the subsidy they are paid to buy Aussie beef but only Aussie beef not meat from kiwi or South Africa which is also readily available in the supermarkets. I have no idea how they would know if you spent it on Aussie beef or not.
