26 August: KATHMANDU: Nepali workers leaving the country for employment abroad were continually affected due to tussle between the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the Department of Immigration at Tribhuvan International Airport. Some 114 job aspirants were forced on Sunday to return home from the airport after immigration officials claimed they did not have proper documents to go and work abroad. Most of these migrant workers were heading towards Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, according to Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies. Some of the details on their visa documents, which were written in Arabic, were not translated into English. Officials at the Department of Foreign Employment are responsible for translating visa documents. However, 17 of them including the translators were rounded up by the CIAA on Friday on charges of corruption, there is no one to do the translation at the department. The workers who were asked to go home from the airport were issued final approval to leave the country by the foreign employment department said the Foreign Employment Agencies, which claimed that they were on loss as they had bought tickets for some workers from budget airlines and operators of budget airlines do not provide refund if flights are missed. The latest development comes a day after the immigration department prevented more than 150 workers from flying off to overseas job destinations. The immigration department started scrutinising workers leaving the country strictly to protest Friday’s rounding up of 18 of its officials by the CIAA.
