Agencies against new amendment to FEB Act

Anuradha Kodagoda and Hiran H. Senewiratne

The latest amendment to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment Act No. 21 of 1985 will be detrimental to migrant workers and will lead to more corruption and malpractices among foreign employment agencies, President, Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies, W. M. P. Aponso told a press conference yesterday.

Most Governments did not provide much facilities for the betterment of either migrant employee or foreign employment agencies.

This latest amendment will disrupt the entire industry on the long run. Therefore, we hope the present Government will take this into consideration and provide facilities for their betterment, he said.

"The new amendment to Section 54 of the principal enactment is amended in subsection (3) of that section by the substitution of the words 'every licensee may' to the words 'every licensee shall'. Under the new amendment foreign employment agencies are not mandatory to become a member of the ALFEA and this will lead to corruption and malpractices in the industry.

" Earlier, the ALFEA was able to take disciplinary action against our members. However, with this new amendment, the ALFEA will not be able to take action against the foreign agencies who are non-members of ALFEA," Aponso said.

"There are more than 100,000 sub-agents also engaged in the foreign employment industry. Due to this latest amendment they will lose their job opportunities in the long run. By eliminating the facilitators role, there will be a direct negative impact on the entire industry," Secretary, ALFEA, Faizer Makeen said.

"In addition there is a huge risk of losing employment opportunities that are available in our country with the introduction of the Social Security Levy from foreign employers which bypasses the laws of foreign countries," he said.