Job quotas for recruitment agents to the Middle East challenged in the SC
View(s):A recruitment agent of domestic workers and other categories to the Middle East has filed a fundamental rights case in the Supreme Court challenging the refusal of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) to give him a recruitment quota under new rules.
Wijaya Undupitiya, Managing Director of Saranaseva Pvt Lt (SSPL), through his company is also seeking compensation in a sum of Rs 88 million for the loss of business after he was refused a quota to send domestic workers on established job contracts.
The case was taken up recently and put off for December after the Attorney General’s Office sought time to consult the respondents (SLBFE and the Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera among others).
Mr. Udupitiya, who has shown a lot of concern for migrant workers and their rights and recently helped file the first-ever fundamental rights case by a migrant worker against new rules where domestic workers need the permission of their husbands to go abroad, says that he has been carrying out a licensed foreign employment agency business for over 20 years and applied for approvals to send some 250 domestic workers to the United Arab Emirates. Though approval was granted by the bureau initially he ran into problems after a circular by the SLBFE Chairman to agents informing that a new quota system is to be implemented for the recruitment of female domestics from April 15th onwards.
The petitioner was not given any quota and appeals also failed. By this time, since approvals were given to the recruitment of these workers to the UAE, the petitioner had spent a lot of money on the process.
He says that there is no provision in the SLBFE Act to introduce a quota system. He believes that such a system has been introduced to only ensure that licensees “who are willing to pay a gratification to some of the respondents and some other officers who have access to the computer system of the bureau are awarded a higher quota and the other licensees are given a lower quota or no quota at all as the quota allocation is indicated only in the bureau’s computer system which can be manipulated as and when those who have control over the said system want to”.
The petitioner says that the bureau has been promoting and advertising certain licensees over the television programme ‘Rana Viru Talent Star’ violating the rights of the other licensees and the licensees who are promoted and advertised in the said programme have been allocated a very high quota although the petitioner has not got any quota at all, this violating the fundamental rights of the petitioner.
He says that for each employee recruited by the petitioner and sent on time abroad the foreign agent pays a commission in foreign currency to the petitioner valued at a total of Rs. 88 million which has been lost. “Some of the petitioner’s competitors are telling some of the foreign agents that the petitioner doesn’t have a quota to send workers. This quota system has tarnished the credibility and goodwill of the petitioner,” the petition states, seeking a court ruling that the quota system violates the fundamental rights of the petitioner; to declare that advertising and promoting only six licensees on the TV programme is another violation of fundamental rights and for compensation of Rs 88 million for loss of business.
Senior Attorney Sumedha Mahawanniarachchi and Namagena Gamage appeared for the petitioner.
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