Despite strong diplomatic exercise from Nepali officials to reopen Israel jobs, which have been closed for the last seven months, the Israeli side seems to be in no mood to welcome Nepali workers soon. Israel has stopped accepting Nepali workers expressing serious concern over widespread irregularities in the sending process, including exorbitant fee by manpower agencies, involvement of Nepali workers as agents in Israel and low skill of Nepali workers.[break]
Israel recently sent official response to the government through Nepali Embassy in Tel Aviv, two months after a high-level Nepali delegation led by Labor Minister Mohammad Aftab Alam visited Israel to put diplomatic pressure to lift the ban on Nepali workers.
“Israel has sought the involvement and monitoring by a third party, possibly International Organization for Migration (IOM), and measures to control rampant irregularities and malpractices in the process,” the source added. “We will hold discussions on the Israeli response with the officials of the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management on Friday.”
Israel forwarded the names of 16 Nepali manpower agencies promoting malpractices in the sending process 18 months before and requested the government to take strong action against them. Israel had also urged the government to put in place strict mechanism to control malpractices in the sending process. The Israeli side had also suggested making embassies of both the countries more effective and vigilant in identifying agencies involved in malpractices and bringing them to book. It has also suggested delisting such agencies from the roster of approved agencies.
Though the government has fixed service charge to arrange jobs in Israel at Rs 240,000 per person, manpower agencies used to collect two to three times more than the fixed rate, saying that they have to pay exorbitant commission to Israel-based manpower agents.
Israel -- home to more than 12,000 Nepali workers -- is popular among Nepali women workers who are mostly employed as caretakers.
However, Nepali officials have not taken any action against the agents stating that investigations against them were on.
During Alam´s visit to Israel, Israel´s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eliyahu Yishai had drawn Nepal´s attention on rising incidents of overcharging or landing workers in Israel on flying visa.
With the closure of fresh working visas and cancelation of over 400 issued visas for Nepali workers, investment of more than Rs 500 million by Nepali manpower agencies and job seekers has become uncertain.
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