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Alarming rise in misuse of sponsorship transfers

ABU DHABI — Labour authorities have discovered a large number of violations in the local labour market relating to sponsorship transfer procedures, Khaleej Times has learnt.

"There have been alarming number of breaches for sponsorship transfer measures, with some individuals — be it employers or employees — taking advantage of the flexible rules and the dynamic business environment in the UAE, a senior labour official at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs told Khaleej Times.

He said the ministry has registered cases of misuse of the sponsorship transfer system involving the expatriate workforce where either the employee or the employer has been implicated.

He said that there were many cases where an employee had entered the country with the sole intention of transferring his visa to work with another employer.

"Other detected malpractices that had been detected were of employees who pay money in return of getting their visa transferred in flagrant violation of the labour laws regulating relationship between employees and employers," said the official.

He said in some other cases, sponsorship transfer process is carried out while the employees actually have no real jobs!

On whether the authorities contemplate relaxing stringent measures on sponsorship transfer to lessen the restrictions of movement of human capital in the local labour market, the official said the ministry has always been flexible about the issues related to visa transfer.

He said visa transfer was not a basic element in the relationship between employees and employers while labour contract is the main factor that controls the entitlements of the two sides. "The ministry adopts dynamic and flexible measures in implementing its policies, in accordance with the needs of the labour market and within the framework of regulations that guarantee quality performance," said the official. He underlined that visa transfer impacts on the ministry's strategy concerning the duration of the labourer's stay in the country.

He said that the long stay of a foreign worker in the country might have undesirable implications that may run contrary to the higher interests of the UAE.

"Some countries in the region follow an approach whereby policies are made to limit the duration of foreign workers," he explained.