Recruitment agencies protest prevents 500,000 workers from flying abroad

KATHMANDU, July 24: Nepali recruitment agencies that are protesting against a government decision to send workers free of cost have prevented around 500,000 Nepali migrant workers from heading for seven destination countries.

As the recruiting agencies have halted their services in protest of a government decision to send workers to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Malaysia free of cost, thousands of aspirant migrant workers have been directly affected. The government unilaterally implemented a 'free visa free ticket' system for Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain from July 6.However, the government has given permission to the Nepal Association of Federation of Employment Agencies (NAFEA) to charge Rs 80,000 for Malaysia and Rs 70,000 for the Gulf countries per worker, for the demands that were pre-attested at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) before the cost free rule was implemented. The aforementioned 500,000 jobs were approved by the government before the zero cost scheme was introduced.

Now even those who paid the amounts to fly to Malaysia and Gulf countries remain stuck in Nepal due to the protest by the recruitment agencies including NAFEA. "It seems NAFEA is punishing innocent foreign job aspirants in its attempt to force the government to withdraw the zero-cost decision." said Bishwa Prakash Subedi, the chief at Kathmandu Office, DoFE,

According to figures provided by DoFE, the recruitment agencies has been sitting on a total of 496,793 job demands for those seven countries.

Out of the total job demands received from Malaysia and the six Gulf countries between 4 July, 2012 and 4 July, 2015, these agencies have yet to supply around 500,000 workers to those countries. According to the Foreign Employment Act of Nepal, recruitment agencies can send workers to destination counties within three years from the date of attestation of the demands from those countries by the DoFE.

DoFE spokesman Badri Kari told Republica that the recruitment agencies have already taken advance money from many aspirant workers for the demands.

"Those aspirant migrant workers who have paid advance money for those jobs have the right to overseas employment," said Kari. He added that the recruiting agencies normallly fulfill just around 40 percent of the job demands they bring in.

The total job demand for all destination countries for the fiscal year 2014/15 was 1.19 million but the agencies have supplied only 486,287 so far, according to the DoFE.

Under the free-visa-free-ticket system introduced on July 6, an outbound migrant worker has to pay up to around Rs 17,000, which includes the welfare deposit at the Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB). Recruiting agencies can charge Rs 10,000 per migrant worker as service charge if they are able to prove that they have not been paid the charge by the employer in the destination country.

NAEFA President Bimal Dhakal told Republica that they are not aware about the government decision to allow recruitment agencies to charge workers leaving the country for the job demands that were attested before the implementation of the 'zero cost' system.

"We are still holding talks with the government. We are not going to resume our services until government addresses our demands and scraps the free-visa-free-ticket system," he said.

Due to the indefinite closure of foreign employment services, thousands of aspirant migrant workers are becoming scapegoats as they are unable to go for foreign employment in time. The recruiting agencies have stopped sending workers to all destination countries in protest of the 'zero cost' system.

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