Parliament has today accepted the bill submitted by the government proposing amendments to the Employment Act wherein employers who are negligent towards the rights of expatriate employees will be fined MVR 50,000.
Parliament has today accepted the bill submitted by the government proposing amendments to the Employment Act wherein employers who are negligent towards the rights of expatriate employees will be fined MVR 50,000.
The bill was accepted through the unanimous votes of the 80 members of parliament who participated in the vote. The bill has now been sent to the relevant committee for further review.
In addition to fining companies that fail to pay salaries to expatriate workers, the bill also proposes to authorize the cabinet to determine the total number of expatriates that can be brought in from a country.
As the Employment Act stands now, a maximum of 100,000 expatriates can be brought to Maldives for work from each country. If the number of expatriates from one country exceed this number, the law stipulates that the number has to be brought down to within the limit.
The amendment proposed by the government states that the number of expatriates and their fields of work will be determined through a regulation formed under the Employment Act.
The bill says that these numbers should be determined in light of an assessment done to gauge the impact that foreigners filling these positions would have on the job market, and under the advice of the cabinet.
The assessment must study the challenges in the job market, the necessity for foreign workers in important areas, the number of foreign workers serving in jobs, and the number of foreign workers working illegally.
During the preliminary debate on the bill, some members expressed concerns stating that the fine amount is too high.
They stated that it is unreasonable to require companies to pay a fine of MVR 50,000 for each employee they are negligent in paying wages to, and requested that this be revised during committee stage.
Some members also opined that it would be better to define maximum numbers of workers that can be brought from a country in the law, rather than leaving it to the discretion of the cabinet.
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