House to review report on ‘free visa’ tomorrow

Manama : The House of Representatives will review a special report on the “free visa” phenomenon tomorrow to tackle illegal employment in the country.

The report is the outcome of an eight-member investigative committee formed in March 2015 to study the increasing “free visas” and recommend ways to eradicate it.

The committee held several rounds of discussions on the matter with Labour and Social Development, Industry, Commerce and Industry, Interior and Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministries, in addition to the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), municipal councils of the four governorates of the Kingdom, Bahrain Chamber for Commerce and Industry and several labour unions and societies.

Some of the solutions discussed to end the phenomenon included rationalising and lessening the issuance of work permits and commercial registrations, targeting illegal street vendors, enhancing supervision on labour camps, activating community partnership and immediate deportation of violators.

According to the MPs, the numbers of free visa workers in the country crossed 100, 000 recently, requiring urgent solutions to the issue.

Within the official efforts to tackle the problem, LMRA launched “Flexible Work Permits” in July this year,  which allow certain categories of illegal workers, who meet conditions, to work and reside in the Kingdom without a sponsor. 

The system benefitted around 50,000 illegal workers in the Kingdom.

The CBB also informed the committee that it’s working to promptly disable the bank accounts of workers who finished the periods mentioned in their work permits.

More details will be discussed in the presence of government representatives during the next session of the council tomorrow.