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Illegal visa racket

THE Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has been making all efforts to check the thriving but illegal visa racket in the country, and one of the measures, a preventive one at that, is rejection of visas sought by some after obtaining trade licences in the name of their spouses or children.

The reason for the ministry to reject such applications for visas is because of the belief that some unscrupulous elements deploy such back-door methods to obtain visas, which they literally sell to the thousand of job-seekers in the market subsequently.

But what will happen to genuine cases of wives seeking to start a business? This kind of approach would deprive the spouses of earning their livelihood through business.

Therefore, the Ministry of Labour, notwithstanding the effectiveness and success of such measures, should seriously consider other ways of handling the issue, like making the penalties deterrent enough to discourage unscrupulous elements from deploying such methods. In its efforts to check the illegal visa racket, MLSA should not negate the efforts of the government in providing opportunities to people who are willing to invest in business.

The exercise will also give rise to security problems since jobless expatriates will take to crime.

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