NC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEET RESCHEDULED

NC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEET RESCHEDULED

Kathmandu, 1 Aug.: Main opposition NC central committee has been rescheduled.
The meeting that was to be conducted Monday will now be held Friday.
The committee is discussing a party statute amendment.
President Sushil Koirala amid opposition is seeking additional powers in an amended party statute.
The presidential system is being replaced by a collective leadership.
Girija Prasad Koirala conducted party affairs unilaterally taking important decisions without discussion in the policy-making central committee,
Successor and cousin does not have Girija’s stature to run affairs single-handed
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DEPT. REGISTERS RECORD OUTSOURCING FRAUD

Kathmandu, 1 Aug.: Department of Foreign Employment recorded around 1,204 frauds in the year while the number was only 722 a fiscal year ago. The second half of the fiscal year witnessed a sharp rise in fraud following instability in the regulatory authorities – Ministry of Labour and Transport Management and the department, The Himalayan Times reports.

Frequent changes in the department and government policies are behind the sharp rise in fraud in the second half of the last fiscal year, said a source at the ministry.

The bureaucratic and policy instability provided ground for outsourcing agencies and their agents for more frauds, he added.

The department has started changes in the Foreign Employment Act following outsourcers rejection to register their agents. Of the 875 outsourcing agencies, only four had registered their agents in the department in the first half of the the fiscal year. Following the failure, the department banned outsourcing agencies to open branches.

However, outsourcing agencies have not been obeying the ban. The staff in outsourcing agencies’ branches are working also as agents without legal reorganisation, which is the major cause of sharp rise in frauds in the second half of the fiscal year,” said director general of the department Narendra Prasad Sharma.

“Outsourcing agencies themselves are promoting fraud in the sector,” he said, adding that the department probe shows that most of individual frauds have close link to outsourcing agencies and their agents.

“Despite knowing the fact, we can’’t take legal action because it is hard to prove the connection in the court,” Sharma said.

The department has registered 721 individual and 483 institutional fraud cases worth Rs 641.39 million in the last fiscal year. Of 1,204 fraud cases, some 657 cases were solved in the department in mutual understanding and 97 cases worth Rs 211.66 were forwarded to Foreign Employment Tribunal — a semi-judicial body established in February 2010 to look after the foreign employment fraud cases.

About 447 cases were withdrawn from the department following settlement of cases outside the department. “We solved 267 cases related to outsourcing agencies,” said president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies Som Lal Bataju.

According to him, the association mediated with the responsible outsourcing agencies in solving the cases.

However, bataju blamed the government for rise in outsourcing sector. “Weak monitoring of the department and rising individual contracts are keys,” he said, adding that the government must scrap individual contract and strengthen monitoring mechanism.
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