DOHA: A major goof-up by a popular Malayalam TV channel on Wednesday has led to huge confusion in the sizeable Malayalam-speaking members of the Indian community in Qatar.
The channel said a law had been issued that had removed the exit permit and sponsorship systems for foreign workers.
It cited a Qatar News Agency report that said some provisions of the labour law (No. 14 of 2004) had been amended vide a new law (No. 1 of 2015) passed by Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
QNA flashed a one-line news item announcing the above in the evening. It neither said anything further nor explained the changes. Details came later that evening.
Citing the QNA flash, the channel said Qatar had removed the sponsorship and exit permit rules for expatriate workers.
The channel and its radio station are popular in the GCC.
As soon as channel flashed the misleading news item, it became viral in the Malayalam-speaking community in Qatar and the rest of the Gulf.
The community’s social media was also abuzz with the news.
In Qatar, low-income workers in the community, mostly employed by neighbourhood stores, supermarkets and stalls at the central markets run by Malayalam-speaking people, rejoiced, while managers panicked.
“We were so happy because we thought we could change our jobs and travel home whenever we wished,” said a grocery store worker in the Old Airport locality, not wanting his name in print.
His shift manager, also from his community, looked glum-faced. He told this reporter: “This is bad news for us. We have so many workers. They could leave us for better prospects if we don’t raise their wages.”
In another grocery store nearby, workers appeared too happy but a shift manager said in a lighter vein: “We must now treat our workers nicely or they would leave”.
The workers, ecstatic as they were, wouldn’t listen when told that the TV channel had got the news all wrong.
On Thursday and yesterday, this newspaper got calls from readers from the Malayalam-speaking community asking if media reports suggesting that Qatar had done away with exit permit and sponsorship systems were true.
Exit permit and sponsorship regulations are part of Law No. 4 of 2009 regulating the “Entry, Exit and Stay of Foreigners as well as their Sponsorship”.
It comes within the purview of the Ministry of Interior and covers all foreigners in Qatar. It is being amended and a draft of a proposed law is ready but yet to be approved.
The labour law, on the other hand, comes within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and covers only private companies and their workers.
Government sector workers and those in the mixed sectors or households like maids, cooks and drivers, are not covered by the labour law.
The labour law has nothing to do with the sponsorship of foreign workers or the exit permit they need to travel overseas.
It deals with private sector workers, their working hours, weekly day off, their mode of payments, types of leave and allowances they are entitled to, among others.
The amended labour law whose news was flashed by QNA was only about it being made mandatory for private companies to pay the salaries and allowances of their workers through banking channels six months after it (the new law No 1 of 2015 amending Law No 14 of 2004) coming into force.
The new legislation, to be published in the official gazette before being put into force, gives the Minister of Labour authority to increase the grace period of six months to a similar period or more for companies.
The Peninsula
