The pandemic helped the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM), the Ministry of Interior(MOI), and other government agencies to seize many fictitious companies and close their files. Around 2500 fictitious companies have closed since the beginning of the pandemic, Al Qabas daily reported.
The regional isolation that Kuwait witnessed during the pandemic, revealed the extent of the suffering caused by the residency trade and the exploitation of absent workers, and violation of the residency law to work in daily jobs.
Responsible sources in the Public Authority for Manpower confirmed to the daily that the inspection teams of the authority are currently focusing on arresting the registrar against cases of labor absenteeism, stressing that all absenteeism reports have been studied and verified.
The sources said that during the coming period, the activity of the tripartite committee will be expanded to inspect establishments that employ unregistered workers under their sponsorship.
Selling Residency
Regarding the residency sale, the sources pointed out that the labor protection sector receives complaints from workers regarding obtaining residency in return for a sum of money, where the cases are investigated and then transferred to the competent authorities, or investigations are made with some workers who are caught during the inspections and it is found that they purchased residencies mostly from fake companies.
175 people accused of employing workers and selling residencies were arrested during the first half of this year, including facility owners and delegates.
Last year, PAM, after referring it to the Public Prosecution and the Ministry of Interior, seized more than 2,200 files of companies and institutions that were involved in selling residencies.
Dummy offices
Recently, and in joint coordination between the Employment Protection Sector in the Manpower and the Ministry of Interior, the Residency Affairs Investigations Department seized a group of fictitious domestic labor offices that were carrying out their work in secret to provide workers, most of whom were residency violations and absent from their sponsors, in exchange for daily sums of money.
The total number of fake offices that have been closed since the beginning of this year until mid-July is more than 51 offices working through social networking sites to provide domestic workers in violation of the labor law and the residency system, as 129 absentee and residence violators were arrested in 6 months that were run by fake offices.