‘Good for Omanisation drive’
“The system depends on the Omanisation index of the private establishments. If they achieve the maximum Omanisation rate, the licence application will go directly to the accreditation stage.”
“The system enables the establishment to view its Omanisation index electronically and thereby identify the obligation to be fulfilled regarding Omanisation and the number of Omanis to be hired,” he added.
The move comes as the Ministry of Manpower prepares to launch the new version of the commercial permitting service during the month of December as part of the project to restructure the procedures of developing the Sultanate’s work permit system.
Khawla Al Junaibi, project manager of the Ministry’s advanced manpower management systems, said: “Through the development of work permits, the Ministry seeks to facilitate the provision of services to beneficiaries. The new system focuses on enhancing Omanisation rates in private establishments by activating the minimum and maximum standards for Omanisation.”
“The new improvements also include linking activities of institutions with related professions to making it easier for institutions to choose the appropriate professions,” Al Junaibi added.
“Some other authorities are involved in the process of verifying that businesses meet the regulatory requirements of those entities automatically and without the need to raise documents from those entities.”
The electronic link will also be activated with some government agencies, including the General Secretariat of Taxation, to verify the registration of the establishment of the tax certificate, as well as improving the mechanism of electronic connectivity with the Public Authority for Social Insurance (PASI) and the Public Establishment For Industrial Estates (Madaen); Royal Oman Police and the Special Economic Zone Authority at Duqm (SEZAD) will contribute to follow up the index of achieving Omanisation rates for the region.
Al Junaibi added: “The updated version allows the registration of non-profit institutions in the system to easily obtain a unified number. This facilitates the process of electronic integration with the unified data of non-profit institutions among the relevant authorities such as the Ministry of Manpower, the Royal Oman Police, and various municipalities.”
On November 1, 2018, the Ministry announced the need to register institutions such as embassies, mosques, sports clubs, NGOs, consulting offices, law offices, and government institutions at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry before submitting any service request to the Ministry of Manpower.
Prakerthi Panikar, Head of Department for Education and Professional Development at the National University of Science and Technology, said this would be a good way for companies that wished to further their Omanisation levels to hire students to meet their quotas.
“I think this is a good move because companies now know that they need to meet their Omanisation levels and there are many students who will be capable of now working in these companies,” she said. “The companies that need to hire Omanis will now clearly know that they need to, and they will now know where to get them from as well. We will need to see how this system actually works, but on the surface, it is a good plan.”
“One of the main concerns and leading sentiments among the students here is the availability of jobs, so this will ease that,” added Panikar.
“Some 52 per cent of our students, for example, are girls and they will soon be looking for work. There is a sentiment among companies that female engineers will not stay as long as the males because they will leave soon to start their own families, but they are just as skilled as Omani males and need to be incorporated into the system, so this service will address that as well.”