High Agency fees to be scrapped

Rasika Somarathna

The annulment of exorbitant fees charged by foreign employment recruiting agencies is on the cards, with Authorities planning to bring in new laws to curtail the practice, in a bid to encourage prospective migrant workers (specially male skilled workers).

The Chairman of Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) Kingsley Ranawaka said yesterday that there was a high demand for Lankan skilled workers, specially in the Middle East region which the authorities was finding difficult to match.

Thus a void has been created which should be taken care of before other interested countries exploit the situation to their advantage, the Chairman said.

According to Chairman one of the main factors behind the reason of being unable to find the required numbers is the high charges levied by recruiting agencies, which in turn has discouraged prospective employment seekers.

Also according to the SLBFE Chairman when there is such a big demand the need for charging these high fees to gain employment should not arise.

Thus new regulations would be effected to prevent recruiting agencies from charging such exorbitant fees other than the Government stipulated levies from prospective employment seekers in the future, the Chairman said.

It is believed that there is a heavy skilled worker shortage specially in the construction sector in the Mid-East region with the respective countries loosing millions in revenue due to this worker shortage.

Sri Lanka’s export income is heavily dependent on remittances made by migrant workers which constitutes 35 per cent of the total export earnings.