In a statement sent to the Inquirer, Mamao, who recently flew to Saudi Arabia and visited various camps for distressed OFWs in Riyadh and Jeddah, said a step-by-step template will be followed in the repatriation proceedings.
Advertisement
Workers were unable to renew their residency permits, meaning they could not leave the country and could not access their bank accounts, he said. “We’ve hired lawyers”, he said.
Naseer says he is owed SR22,000 after receiving no wages for eight months.
Sources in March told Agence France-Presse that delayed receipts from the government, whose oil revenues have dropped significantly over the past two years, left employees of the kingdom’s construction giants struggling while they wait for salaries. We will wait for our money.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that the goal of VK Singh’s visit was to resolve issues being faced by Indian workers wanting to come back home or find alternative employment in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi authorities have already issued instructions to maintain cleanliness, provide electricity, water supply and medical facilities at the camps where Indians are staying and a local caterer is also providing them food now, officials said.
“Following the high-level discussions that Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh had with Saudi authorities during his visit to Saudi Arabia in July, the Saudi authorities took a magnanimous view of the situation and agreed to the speedy repatriation of those Indian workers wishing to return to India and also assisting those workers wishing to relocate to other companies”, Swarup said. “As the ministry, we will go through the labour dispute courts to go after Saudi Oger and to collect the claims”.
Saudi King Salman earlier this month ordered various measures to help affected foreign workers.
“This is a small segment…of the labor market”. We have more than 10 million expats working happily here in the country.
Advertisement
Philippines Secretary of Labour Silvestre Bello, who visited Riyadh for talks with Haqbani this week, said that with the assistance of Saudi authorities, about 1,000 Filipino workers could be sent home by mid-September. “Then we will go back”, said Sardar Naseer, 35, a Pakistani welder at the Qadisiya Labour Camp, which houses around 2,000 workers from Oger. My daughters are out of school.
