Fines on expired employment visa renewal won’t be waived

Employees, whose firms have been shut down and have applied for renewal of employment visa, will not be exempted from paying the pecuniary penalty unless the Inspection Department at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs issued them a certificate stating that their facilities were actually closed down, said Ahmed Khajoor, Assistant Under-Secretary of Human Resource Development at the ministry.

Earlier, the Dh2, 000 fines were discarded when the applicant submitted a paper issued by the Labour Relations Department saying that the establishment where he/she had been working had closed down. “Now, exemption will be based on a certificate from the inspection department stating that the firm had closed down. The certificate should be approved by the under-secretary of the ministry,” said Mr Khajoor.

He said the new measure aims at avoiding any sort of deception by employees, noting that some fraud had been detected. He underlined that having a labour dispute processed with legal authorities does not exempt the sponsor from paying the amount of the fines.

“The ministry has created an electronic page concerning exemptions. When approved, an exemption certificate is downloaded in the system before the application for renewal of expired employment visa,” said Mr Khajoor.

The official denied the existence of any technical default in the system, assuring that the system is functioning quite well.