Qatar vows ‘100% compliance’ on key labour reform by end of 2016

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DOHA, Nov 2, (AFP): Qatar said it expects “100 percent compliance” from businesses by the end of 2016 on a labour reform introduced to ensure the country’s vast migrant workforce receive their salaries on time. Government figures released in Doha on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Wage Protection System (WPS) show that 1.8 million — around 85 percent — of Qatar’s 2.1 million workforce are now paid electronically. That works out at around 37,000 companies.

But a senior labour ministry official told AFP that all companies will sign up to the scheme by the end of December. “Our aim is to have 100 percent compliance by the end of the year,” said Mohammed Ali Al-Meer, the director of Qatar’s labour inspection department. “We have a commitment from the (remaining) 15 percent, we have contacted them.” The WPS was introduced on Nov 2 last year by the 2022 football World Cup host in an attempt to improve labour conditions following widespread international criticism of Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers.

Failure to pay salaries on time, especially for low-waged blue collar workers, was one of the biggest complaints voiced by rights groups against companies in the energy-rich Gulf state. A 2013 academic study, “Portrait of Low-Income Migrants in Contemporary Qatar,” found that around a fifth of migrant workers were “sometimes, rarely or never” paid on time.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s population has passed the 2.6 million mark as the emirate draws in thousands of workers to build the infrastructure for the 2022 football World Cup, official figures showed Wednesday. The tiny Gulf state has seen a more than four-fold increase in its population since 2000 as oil and gas revenues have fuelled a rapid economic transformation.

A total of 2,611,522 people were resident in the emirate in October, the figures released by the ministry of development planning and statistics showed.

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