Kathmandu, July 28

Against the backdrop of the government failing to resume issuing work permits to Malaysia-bound Nepali workers, recruiting agencies have threatened to start protests against the government starting from Wednesday.

Citing that the government is not serious towards resuming the outflow of Nepali workers to Malaysia, recruiting/manpower agencies have warned of staging protests if the government does not start issuing Malaysian work permits within Tuesday. “If the government fails to do so, we will start protest activities starting from Wednesday,” said Rohan Gurung, president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies.

As part of the protest, manpower agencies have announced it will start the protest by picketing at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE).

“By delaying the process to resume issuing work permits to Malaysia-bound Nepali workers, the government is acting against people’s right to work. This will not only affect people’s livelihood but will also leave a huge impact on the Nepali economy, which is largely driven by remittance,” said Gurung and urged the government to immediately start issuing work permits to Malaysia.

Though the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, a few weeks ago had said the meeting of a joint technical team of the governments of Nepal and Malaysia will soon sort out various issues hindering the resumption of supply of labour force from Nepal to the Southeast Asian nation, authorities of the two nations have not been able to sit for the meeting.

The supply of Nepali workers to Malaysia has been halted since May last year after the government cracked down on Immigration Security Clearance and One Stop Centre that had been levying additional charges on Nepali migrants.

Though the two governments had inked a bilateral labour pact in October last year, the outflow of Nepali migrant workers to Malaysia is still uncertain following the delay in finalising the medical-related issues by both governments.

Though the government has not been issuing new work permits to Malaysia-bound Nepali workers, it had started issuing work permits to those workers who had already received the ‘calling visas’ from April this year.