A team of government officials, which recently visited several employer companies in different Malaysian cities including Quala Lumpur to exert pressure on the workers to pay back the loan, has concluded that the recovery of over Rs 40 million loans, apart from the accumulated interest, is very difficult, if not absolutely impossible, in its report. [brak]
The team, headed by Kashi Raj Dahal, director of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), could not meet a single worker, who took the loan before flying overseas, in any of the Malaysian companies it visited. "They must have either returned home or left for some other country," Dahal said.
The difficulty in recovery of the loan is largely due to late recovery efforts by the government. It has been almost six years since the government announced to help conflict victims take bank loans for overseas jobs. Given the fact that Nepali workers can stay only for a maximum of three years, with two additional years if applied for visa extension, in Malaysia, the government´s recovery efforts came too late.
Six years ago, the government had announced to stand surety for those conflict victims, who wanted to improve their living standards, to take loan from private banks. A total of 721 Nepali workers, presumably conflict victims, had taken loans varying from Rs 70,000 to Rs 100,000 for going abroad to work.
According to Dahal, only around 200 workers have paid back loans after returning from abroad. "Others have simply vanished," he said. As the banks did not ask for collateral, thanks to the government´s surety, the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) finds the recovery of loans a rather tricky issue.
In its report prepared after the Malaysia visit, the team has recommended that the government must motivate these workers to pay back the loans by waiving the accumulated interest. "This could be one of the positive moves for the loan recovery," Dahal said. The banks had lent loans to foreign job aspirants at 8 per cent annual interest rate.
Similarly, in its report, the team has recommended that MoLTM devise a district-level mechanism for the recovery of such loans, if ever lent again in the future. "MoLTM does not have district-level mechanism for the follow-up of the recovery of loans," he said, adding, "Therefore, it would be better if MoLTM engages District Administration Offices (DAOs) in this task."
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