The stranded Nepalis are living in company camps, without jobs and several months’ worth of their salary unpaid. There are many among them who have crossed their stay permit duration and cannot leave their camps.
After bringing 21 stranded migrant workers from Kuwait, the government is gearing up to rescue the other people, who are languishing in the Gulf country for months now.
An estimated 300 Nepalis, working for Kuwait’s construction firm, Kharafi National, had been left in dire straits after the company stopped paying them due to management problems.
Among them, only 94 had reached out to the Nepal Embassy for assistance; 21 of them were returned home in the first phase while the remaining 73—currently under the embassy’s care—are waiting to leave the country. But there are still 206 people who need support to return home following the crisis at Kharafi.
Tha Kathmandu Post reported, that the government of Nepal is taking diplomatic initiative to bring them home, recover their unpaid salary and waive off the fines of the workers whose work permit duration has expired, said Bhuwan Prasad Acharya, spokesperson of Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE).
“We have already discussed the matter with the Foreign Ministry, which has, in turn, instructed the Nepali mission to start talks with the Kuwait government,” Acharya was quoted by Kathmandu Post as saying.
The stranded Nepalis are living in company camps, without jobs and several months’ worth of their salary unpaid. There are many among them who have crossed their stay permit duration and cannot leave their camps.
Violation of visa duration means that they cannot return home unless they pay up the fines. The total fine amount could reach Rs 4 million mark, according to the embassy estimates.
Acharya said since the employing company failed to renew the stay permit of the migrant workers, they should not be the ones paying the fines. “We are trying to waive off the fines from the workers as well as recover their unpaid salary,” he said.
