Employment generation is one of the major objectives behind allowing foreign investment in a proposed draft of the foreign investment policy. 

Discussions are on what way and skills and scale foreigners should be allowed to enjoy job opportunities in Nepal that exports a majority of its new job entrants every year, those too mostly non-skilled or semi-skilled. 

The draft paper has stated that foreign investors can employ foreign work forces and experts in skills that not available within Nepal and moreover investors are obliged to transfer such skills imported from foreign countries within the first five years of starting business. 

A similar policy provision also exists in the Labour Act, 1992.

Speaking at a discussion on proposed policy recently, former Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal criticized the provision that prohibits managerial manpower saying that Chief Executives Officers (CEOs) may be available domestically but they may not be competitive enough to meet investors’ requirements.

“Therefore, the clause should not bar investors from hiring top or executive and management-level people from anywhere in the world,” Khanal said. 

Talking to Republica, Khanal cites the example of the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) appointing a Mexican chief, questioning whether there were no British national competitive enough to assume the coveted post.

He, however, was of the view that barring foreign workers for semi-skilled workforce can be justified. Meanwhile, he also feared such mid-level workforce will be lazy and not make progress by the provision of only allowing them to work.

Former Secretary Purushottam Ojha criticized the clause saying ‘not available’ was non-transparent and vague wording in the clause that provided space for discretionary definitions.

He said there must be selective provisions with specifications of only allowing foreign experts and professionals to work but banning foreign workforce for clerical jobs and general workers.

The Chief of Foreign Investment Section at the Department of Industry, Bipin Rajbhandari, said that investors won’t come here if they are disallowed from appointing the top management-level and some key persons with confidants in their firms and organizations. “We should think about simplifying the ‘not available within Nepal’ allowance in the clause while allowing investors to bring in foreigners by specifying the maximum number of foreign employees to be allowed in the top-level,” said Rajbhandari, adding that bringing in laborers and semi-skilled workers has to be prohibited.

Every year, 550,000 young people enter the job market in Nepal, a recent report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said. Conservative estimates say that hardly 100,000 jobs are created in the country and every day about 1,600 youths leave abroad for employment.

However, former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri is of the view that the issue of allowing or banning foreign workers should be analyzed on the basis of whether Nepalis are available to work here in Nepal.

He blamed the common characteristics of the available Nepali workforce who are choosy, lazy and not flexible about work saying that there are many foreign workers from sewing to the construction but Nepalis are taking up the available jobs.

“Nepalis are flying abroad not because there is no job domestically but because they have a choosy nature about the jobs, thus were pushed to foreign employment,” he argues. Moreover, Nepalis are not flexible about work and tend to protest and are not faithful laborers.

In an indication about such nature of Nepali workers in Malaysia, former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad suggested during his visit in April that Nepali workers in Malaysia should comply with the law and policy of the Malaysian government.

In the case of construction workers, foreigners are allowed to work as per ‘any special provision’ enshrined in the construction agreement signed but those workforces have to receive work permits from the Department of Labor (DoL). 

The Labour Act, 1992, says if Nepali citizens could not be available for any skilled technical posts even after publishing advertisement in national-level public newspapers, the organization may submit an application to DoL along with evidence to the fact before approval for appointing a non-Nepali citizen.

However, officials from the concerned agencies of the government who recommend to DoL for work permits to foreigners reveal that the firms and organizations, particularly foreigner-based ones, tend to insert some clauses of requirements, qualifications, foreign language efficiency and specializations to shun Nepali jobseekers and recruit the non- Nepalis.

In absence of strong regulatory mechanisms, it is believed that even semi-skill and laborers are coming all the way from foreign countries, replacing eligible Nepali job-seekers through the legal loophole. Chhetri also said there are instances of poor quality in the works particularly in the mega-construction works by such imported laborers making the projects bear losses. 

Some officials stress that the existing law has enough provisions but some mandatory clauses must be inserted in the technical agreements, signed between such firms and organizations and the government, specifying the number of such workers categorically.

To make things worse, the ‘illegal’ foreign workers issue often comes into light as many of such foreigners are found doing jobs without any work permit in the country.

Following a study, DoL had taken action against over four dozen foreign organizations and firms for employing non-Nepalis without work permits and publicized the names of these firms and organizations. 50 organizations were found employing 103 such foreigners and were fined Rs 10,000 for each such recruitment. Officials say that they enter on tourist visas but remain here working jobs illegally. Officials of the embassies and diplomatic missions do not require such work permits.

Published on: 16 May 2014 | Republica