New system to ensure workers paid on time

MUSCAT: Companies in Oman will need to adopt the Ministry of Manpower’s (MoM) new wage protection system to ensure that all employees are paid on time, beginning this month.

Organisations in Oman have three months to conform to the new system, and ensure that their work systems follow the new payment regulations.

In an announcement released on Monday, the Ministry of Manpower said: “The Ministry, in cooperation with the Central Bank of Oman, is upgrading and updating the wage protection system and the launch of unified wages formula in the banking transfer of manpower wages.

“Stemming from the Ministry’s keenness to ensure stability of work at private sector establishments, and endeavour to enhance the development of systems and services offered to employers and manpower, to guarantee success of this programme and ensure that it achieves its desired goals, the ministry calls upon all private sector establishments to use the aforementioned unified formulae to transfer the wages of their employees. “Employers should also ensure that their establishments are registered in the wages protection system (WPS) at the bank branches in which their accounts are registered.

“The ministry urges employers to commit to wage transfers according to the new formula, starting with November 2017 wages. The ministry will grant a period of three months for employers to comply with the new formula, and will not accept any other formula after the end of February 2018,” it said on Monday. “The wage protection system shows the government’s willingness to improve employees’ lives and grant them their rights,” said S Gupta, a CEO of private limited firm in Muscat.