The government’s decision to assume all responsibilities to send industrial workers to South Korea is a challenging undertaking. Blaming the Moon Drops Overseas Pvt Ltd, the manpower agency that got approval to send 695 workers to Korea this year, for not adhering to the criteria set by the government, the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management said it would carry out all necessary work, at least this time around, to dispatch the lot. According to the Ministry, the company failed to meet the government’s instruction with respect to guaranteeing 10 per cent quota for women, conflict victims, dalits and marginalised group. Also included in the instruction was the selection of workers through a lottery system if the demand exceeded five times the quota. The Ministry also said the company did not abide by the Supreme Court’s order to give preference to some 200 workers who were selected but not sent to Korea in 2004. Controversies regarding the Moon Drops Overseas’ policies governing selection of workers, exorbitant charges and quota allocation came upfront during the last all-party government when CPN-UML central committee member Raghuji Pant was heading the ministry in question.

Valid as the claims may be, the government has to judge how feasible it is to be involved in a business, which should logically come within the private sector domain. No doubt, the initiative is to impose the necessary control over the manpower business, that is widely perceived to be fraught with malpractices, but it is unrealistic to assume that all problems confronting the foreign employment sector will be automatically solved by the official takeover. Instead of resorting to unwarranted involvement, the government should take onto itself only the regulatory, monitoring and supervisory role. Also, the scores of other manpower companies now operating in the country cannot be unilaterally penalised for the wrongdoings of one agency. All misdemeanours can be scrutinised through a proper mechanism. But the government should not formulate national laws and policies governing the sector, which generates approximately $1.04 billion in remittances according to 2005 World Bank Report, just on the basis of an isolated case of irregularities detected in a given company.