Every year, thousands of Nepalis fly to foreign countries in search of jobs. Around 90 percent of them end up in Persian Gulf countries. Ideally, a foreign job aspirant is only supposed to pay only for medical, insurance, and pre-departure orientation training, which amounts to around Rs 8,000. But overseas job recruitment agencies, commonly referred to as manpower agencies in Nepal, have been charging an average of Rs 100,000 from each person. They are openly going against the ‘free visa, free ticket’ policy introduced by the government in 2015. Anushka Nepal of ApEx talks to Umakanta Acharya, director general, Department of Foreign Employment on the matter.  Why aren’t job recruitment agencies following the ‘free visa, free ticket’ policy?  When the policy was made public, many agencies showed their dissatisfaction. There were concerns that they might go out of the business. They didn’t like the fact that the government did not consult them before announcing the policy. One reason could be that dissatisfaction. Also, there is an unhealthy competition among manpower agencies on who gets more demand for workers. They are even paying the employers to bump up the worker demand numbers. Some of them are doing this in order not to run out of business, while others are doing it out of greed. As a result, none of the agencies are willing to follow the rules. 

The department should receive many complaints regarding this matter. So, What is the department doing? 

Yes, we do get several complaints in this matter. But in most cases, there is not enough proof to support the workers’ claims. Manpower agencies do charge exorbitant fees from their clients, but they issue payment receipts for just Rs 10,000. So, without the document of proof to produce it in the court, we cannot pursue the case. The best we could do is to claim for the money people have paid to manpower agencies, and fine those companies if we have some kind of incriminating evidence. There is no legal provision to shut down the agencies, so they go on with their work even if the department has fined them.  Has the department worked on investigating these issues? If so, why has there not been any significant change in favor of the migrant workers?  We do launch investigations into the complaints we get from aspirant migrant workers. The goal of our investigation is to gather enough proof so that the matter could be taken to the court of law. But, like I said before, we rarely find substantial proof of wrongdoing to pursue the case legally. Secondly, a person will drop the case once the recruitment company promises to return their money. This takes away the reason for our investigation. So we haven’t been able to pursue a case thoroughly. There are aspects of money laundering, human rights violation, and also the breach of policy that needs to be looked into, but all of them do not fall under the jurisdiction of the department. One way this could work is if all the associated departments at the ministry were to collaborate while investigating complaints. It is said that manpower agencies enjoy political patronage that stops them from being held accountable. Is this true?  Yes, it is true. Many successful agency owners have a direct or indirect involvement with politics. In Nepal, we all have witnessed how political influence can help an individual get out of a situation no matter how bad. The same goes for manpower agencies. Even when the department is willing to take action, political parties and their leaders protect manpower agencies and their owners. This has given them the confidence to violate regulations and take part in unlawful activities, because they know the authorities cannot touch them. It is a dangerous power they hold, which affects migrant workers the most.  A former labor minister himself owned a manpower agency. Did it not show a conflict of interest?  Obviously, it shows a conflict of interest. The government should not have appointed him in the first place. I cannot say for certain that he had a direct influence in the policy regarding migrant workers and job recruitment agencies. But what I can tell you is that there are many ways, not visible to the public, through which he could have misused the power to help his business interests. He was the minister before I joined the department, but I have heard some of my colleagues say that they felt unsafe during his tenure, that they were hesitant to open an investigation into the malpractices and irregularities reported in foreign job recruitment agencies. When people from the department themselves are scared of doing their jobs, you can imagine which side the minister leaned heavily on.