The newly appointed director general at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) is gearing up to form a Management Audit and Inspection (MAI) team in order to curb fraudulent activities of individual agents and man-power agencies.

“The MAI will be an effective tool in minimising the chances of manpower agencies and individuals duping foreign job aspirants,” said DG at DoFE Krishna Hari Pushkar.

The MAI led by DG will inspect the manpower agencies and orientation centres on the basis of complaints filed against them. In case of irregularities, the team can take immediate action, ranging from verbal warning to suspension. Only yesterday, the MAI had warned five manpower agencies found to be flouting rules. Although such inspection team did exist in the department earlier, reportedly it was not functioning properly.

The department has also made it mandatory for the manpower agencies to put up ‘Manpower Citizen’s Charter’. The charter will contain all the information regarding the process for job placement abroad in plain writing. While Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies has welcomed the move, the template for the charter has already been developed, according to Pushkar.

“Additionally, to provide quick services to beneficiaries, improve the image of the department and boost morale of the staff, we are planning to automate the department in three phases,” Pushkar informed.

The first phase dubbed as ‘People Perspective’ emphasises on good governance of the department through automation. This is aimed at increasing transparency by ironing out existing malpractices. Some of the features under this phase are already in practice whereas the department plans to take most of its procedures online within six months.

The second phase is termed as ‘Institution Stakeholders Perspective’ which will regulate institutions like manpower agencies, medical centres, orientation centres and insurance companies. This system will be tracking information of all the concerned stakeholders through online system. It will also update the position of the concerned agency. The system is in being developed and the department plans to install it within a year.

The third phase is an ‘Advance phase’. Everyone from individual agent to manpower agencies, orientation centres, medical centres and insurance companies having relation with the DoFE and foreign employment will be linked through this system. It will be functional within next one-and-a-half years.

Since last Friday, the department has already started the system of verifying fake documents if anything seems amiss. In this regard, the DoFE e-mails the recruiting agency abroad, the company, department of immigration, police department and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the destination country. And, based on their feedback, the DoFE will take action.

Similarly, the department is utilising the social and formal surveillance channel to verify that the cases filed at Litigation and Investigation Section under DoFE are genuine and not related to monetary dealings. Through social channel, the department will meet the neighbours of the concerned person and his or her close relatives, whereas it will seek help of police in case of complicated matters.

Pushkar also said that the department is going to have separate desk that will be attended by volunteers in the premises, to address sensitive issues of women foreign migrants and returnees. This unit will basically aware female job migrants regarding the destination country, type of work they will be doing there and if necessary, provide additional orientation too. “The unit will also address the problems of women foreign migrant returnees,” he added.

Published on: 18 February 2014 | The Himalayan Times