Al-Dakhnan appeals to PAM to reduce by 50 pct licensed labor offices’ guarantees

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 6: Chairman of the Domestic Workers Recruitment Bureaus Khaled Al-Dakhnan appealed to the Public Authority for Manpower represented by the Department for Recruiting Domestic Workers to liquidate 50 percent of the financial guarantees for licensed bureaus, which are in the custody of the authority, and give the sum back to the recruitment bureaus to cushion losses sustained as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, reports Al-Jarida daily.

In a statement to the daily, Al-Dakhnan affirmed Ministerial Resolution No. 2302 of 2016, concerning the rules and procedures for implementing the provisions of Law (68/2015) related to domestic workers, set the value of the financial guarantee at KD40 thousand, deposited in a local bank.

“Due to the complete paralysis of the recruitment of domestic workers, which has lasted more than 7 months since the beginning of the pandemic, we appeal to the Manpower Public Authority to liquidate KD 20,000 of the amount, provided that the bureau will be obliged to return the amount again within a specific agreed period,” he said.

He added, “Recruitment bureaus are among the sectors directly affected by the repercussions of the current crisis, exposing them to wide losses, and we suggested that half of the financial guarantees be liquidated to confront this exceptional situation, provided that it’s returned within six months, for example.”

With regard to the repercussions of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s decision to ban commercial aviation coming to and from 31 countries, including India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Nepal- as per the instructions of the health authorities, AlDokhnan said “those directly affected by the decision are citizens, and not bureaus, especially as all of them were waiting for their workers to return after being stuck for months in their countries of origin, with the launching of partial operation of flights by 30 percent earlier this month.”

Al-Dokhnan renewed his appeal to concerned authorities to resume the issuance of visas for domestic workers since the labor market suffers severe shortage in this sector after halting the recruitment of new workers for nearly seven months, indicating most of the existing workers in the country have completed their work contracts and want to return to their home countries.