The Sainsbury family are understandably cautious over the £10.5bn bid by Delta Two, the investment company owned by The Qatari Royal Family............

Lord David and Lord John Sainsbury are reported to have asked Mr Taylor who is leading the bid on behalf of Delta Two to answer various questions.  They want to know why Delta plans to saddle the supermarket chain with £6.6bn worth of debt and what will happen to the £4.5bn pension fund.  There is also the worry that this is just an asset stripping exercise.   Delta is reported to be evasive, obstructive and even aggressive.  This will come as no surprise to anyone who has tried to do a deal with the Qataris.

Anyone who has ever done business in Qatar will be well placed to advise Sainsbury's that anything involving money is overly complicated, extremely painful and ultimately if you do manage to get a contract signed, a miracle in itself, the outcome is rarely what you expect.  Some businessmen in Saudi, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Dubai actively avoid doing business with Qataris and are derogatory in the extreme about their 'business' methods.  

One Saudi businessman told me "They just don't pay up.  It is a game to them.  They work on the 'pay the last man standing' theory.  If you can keep going long enough, they may pay you.  It is however, an active choice not to.  The large British and American companies who let them get away with this because they can afford to hold out, make life very difficult for small companies like mine."

A sentiment with which I and my team readily agree! 

Quite apart from the business and financial concerns there are other moral issues that we, as potential customers, should be considering if the bid is ultimately successful and we find ourselves being asked to hand out money over to the tiny Gulf State.

The Qatari Royal Family, rather quaintly, like to describe the system that is building their country, as a 'modern day serfdom'. One can only imagine this is an attemt to make it sound like some benign traditional system of British history.  The reality, however, is very different.  The skyscrapers of Doha are being built on the backs of a 21st Century slave trade.  Human beings from India, Nepal and the Phillipines are, in effect, bought and sold and controlled by a 'sponsor' system that is inhumane. Three years ago the Emir promised to get rid of this system.  It still exists.  There are many furtive reports of ill treatment, rape, abuse and torture perpetrated on foreigners who are ill equipped to deal with it.  The everyday treatment of a large number of the most vulnerable 'immigrant' workers is truly appalling.

Two years ago The Qatar Human Rights Committee was set up in Doha.  It is one of the most impotent and laughable organisations I have ever dealt with and is commonly believed to be there to pay lip service the demands of Amnesty International and the Americans whose armed forces protect Qatar from the rest of the Middle East.  Compared to a large majority of foreign workers in Qatar I was one of the lucky ones,  My exit visa was witheld illegally in July 2005.  It took me 28 days to get out but that was only after The Emir intervened directly.  For most, the ordeal is much longer as they don't have any resources, contacts or the ability to hire a solcitor.  I have heard that suicide was the way out for one foreign worker held there just before we arrived in Doha.

[I will be expanding on this subject in more detail on following pages]. 

The British Foreign Office slobber and fawn over the Qataris and the British Embassy in Doha is terrified of upsetting the Al Thani family.  Let's hope that the Sainsbury family show more backbone or we will all have to start shopping somewhere else! 

Click here to view Amnesty International Library

Click here to view Qatar Report from Amnesty International

Click here to view US Department of State report on human trafficking in Qatar

Click here for further links