Non-graduate over-60s face ‘banking dilemma’

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PAM JOINS IN LAUNCH OF EFFORTS AGAINST VISA TRADE

Expats fear slap in transactions upon expiry of Civil ID

KUWAIT CITY, Dec 12: The non-graduate expatriates who are sixty years and above find themselves in no-man’s land as the government continues to delay in resolving the issue of renewal of work permits, reports Al-Rai daily quoting what it called ‘informed sources’. The daily has learned from these ‘informed sources’ that this issue comes to haunt these expatriates again — some of whom spend sleepless nights to save 500 dinars to pay for their private health insurance and another sum of money to renew their work permit – since they are now threatened with suspension of their bank accounts because they do not hold a valid Civil ID, which means their accounts will be literally frozen and they will neither be able to withdraw nor transfer their own money for no fault of theirs.

The ‘informed sources’ told Al-Rai because of the delay in taking a decision to solve this problem, the banks will find themselves obliged to stop the customer’s transactions upon expiry of the Civil ID. This segment of people is now vulnerable to being deprived of sending money to their families back home. It is common knowledge that residents whose residence permits have expired cannot avail banking facilities, but the question is: Does this apply to those who hold ‘temporary residence’.

In parallel with the efforts aimed at organizing the labor market, the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) and other relevant authorities have launched strict new measures to prevent the visa trade, screen commercial licenses in all sectors, reduce manipulation in the process of bringing in new workers, and prevent the entry of marginalized workers, reports Al-Qabas daily. According to informed sources from PAM, these measures are considered as a continuation of the efforts exerted over the past two years to prosecute those involved in the visa trade, hundreds of who were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The process of arresting residency violators and pursuing their sponsors are still ongoing. Work is underway to audit licenses and adjust the estimation of companies’ needs for manpower, give business owners a number of workers according to the projects implemented or the number of shops, warehouses and other affiliated facilities, in addition to other procedures that are being followed to grant employment for government contracts.

Workforce
The mechanism used for government contracts scheduled for a large workforce estimated at thousands is granted to companies in stages according to the need contained in the licenses of the authority supervising the project, in addition to a study carried out by the department of need assessment in PAM to indicate the extent of the need to put the entire required number or part of it. The sources affirmed that PAM does not abuse any institution or activity in the country, and that there are strict procedures being followed with any files that have previously been noted, either labor problems or non-compliance with the laws and regulations for granting labor rights, or the presence of labor problems related to salaries and entitlements.

They explained that PAM has made great strides in the file of prosecuting visa traders during the past two years with the cooperation of the Ministry of Interior. The processes of confronting them are still in place, as the noose has been greatly tightened on them, employment problems have become much less than before, and work permits are codified and are not granted to real entities that are actually working in the labor market. The sources stressed that PAM recently received thousands of applications to issue work permits in several sectors, most notably the private education sector, restaurants and food companies, guards and security workers, correspondents, cleaners, clerks, the contracting sector, fishermen and farmers.

Efforts
They affirmed that efforts are continuing to pursue fake domestic recruitment offices that exploit the cyberspace to announce the jobs of domestic workers in light of the great market need for them, as 90 percent of female workers in this type of offices are absent or in violation of the residency law. The sources said, “During the past three months, the tripartite committee arrested 158 absconders and residency violators of Asian and African nationalities working in fake domestic labor offices. Many brokers of these offices, who are of Arab nationality, were arrested after cases of arrest, summons and absondism, were registered against them, as well as another group of Asian and African expatriates who have been running this type of activity that is categorized as human trafficking.

The coming period will witness campaigns to inspect new commercial complexes and office rental sites that are known to have fake licenses without having a real activity”. The sources highlighted a tendency to raise the value of the worker’s guarantee, which is currently paid for government contracts at a value of KD 250, in addition to activating other procedures, such as liquidating the financial guarantees set for the project in exchange for any crisis or labor problem that is monitored related to the material rights of workers.

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