Ministry of Labour and Transport Management is developing framework to punish outsourcing agencies involved in fraud, as fraud cases are growing in recent times.

Around 1,012 fraud cases have been recorded in Department of Foreign Employment in the first eleven months of current fiscal year, while the numbers stood at 722 a year ago.

The ministry is planning to take legal action -under Foreign Employment Act 2007 -to the outsourcing agencies in volved in fraud and cheating to people. “We are exploring possible punishment measures against outsourcing agencies involved in fraud,“ said Minister for Labour and Transport Management Mohammed Istayak Rai. Among the 1,012 fraud cases, outsourcing agencies are involved in 401 cases while 611 cases are against individual.

However, officials at the ministry believe that the case registered in the name of individual also linked to outsourcing agency. “Most of the individual frauds are from agents of outsourcing agencies,“ an officer at the ministry said, adding that outsourcing agencies are reluctant to register their agents.

Rs 542.34 million fraud have been registered in the department in the fiscal year 2010-11 and claims around Rs 162.30 have been settled so far. About 89 cases with claims of Rs 180.91 million are under investigation in the Foreign Employment Tribunal.

Meanwhile, the ministry is also collecting list of outsourcing agencies from Department of Foreign Employment and Nepali diplomatic mission abroad. “We have written Nepali embassies in major destination countries to provide

the list of complaints against outsourcing agencies,“ he said, adding that the ministry has received a list of 47 outsourcing agencies from Nepali embassy in Qatar. The ministry is expecting to get a complete list from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait within a week. “After receiving the list of fraud outsourcing agencies we will start action against them,“ he said.

Laws governing foreign job have given right of cancellation of registration of fraud outsourcing agency but not a single agency's licence has been revoked till now.

Published on: 4 July 2011 | The Himalayan Times