Labor and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara said that within the first 7 days of next year, steps will be taken to start a Foreign Employment Bureau office with a staff capable of providing services in Tamil.
The minister took this decision at the same time as a group of children of expatriate workers made a request to the minister yesterday (18).
Accordingly, the minister instructed the officials to take proper steps to establish the relevant office and that the work should be completed within the first seven days of the next year.
The Minister also emphasized that the Foreign Employment Bureau is dedicated to providing prompt and friendly service in their mother tongue to every citizen of this country.
The minister made further comments regarding his decision when he joined the celebration held at the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau on the occasion of International Migrants Day.
The minister also said:
“A large number of people from Nuwara Eliya district go abroad for foreign jobs. They have to come to Colombo, Kandy or Badulla to solve their problem. Even though they have travelled such a distance, the officials in the offices have no way of communicating with these people because they do not know the language.
In a program I participated in this morning, the children who were present said this very painfully. They actually staged a protest. Among the boards, there was one asking Nuwara Eliya to provide an office of the Foreign Employment Bureau.
I promised those children that, within seven days of January next year, an office of the Foreign Employment Bureau will be provided in the city with Tamil-speaking officers.
The minister mentioned that steps have been taken to encourage people to leave the country for foreign jobs and also mentioned that a special program has been started to regulate foreign employment agencies.
According to that, in the recent past, measures have been taken to suspend the licenses of 400 foreign employment agencies and more than 200 agencies have been banned full-time.
Meanwhile, he said that there is no need to pay money to external parties for foreign jobs in Japan and Israel.
According to that, the claims made by some traffickers that they provide foreign employment opportunities in Japan at different prices are false, he said.
Meanwhile, no party needs to pay money for the 10,000 jobs that were recently opened for the agricultural sector in Israel, if it was discovered after someone went abroad that money had been paid to some party, an agreement has already been reached with the Israeli government regarding the relevant steps to bring them back to the island, the minister further stated.
