500 foreign workers caught with work permit issues

 

Five-hundred (500) immigrant workers were caught with work permit issues, Minister of Labour Clazy Rore told Parliament this week.

Rore, speaking on the Motion of Sine Die, this week defended his decision to reject the Solomon Islands National University’s VC Dr Ganeshwar Chand. He said he had already acted on the matter and now it is before the Courts to decide whether he was wrong or right.

Rore had ejected the SINU Council’s appeal to renew the work permit of the VC, Dr. Chand. Rore instead he stood by the decision of his Commissioner of Labour and rejected the VC’s work permi, with four other expatriates. The employment of expatriate staff with SINU was brought to light after it was discovered that the university’s records and Labour files did not show that the staff, including the VC, had work permits for their employment with SINU. The Director of Immigration had also confirmed that no gazette had been formalized to exempt the concerned staff from the requirements for work permits as such their employment with SINU was illegal. SBMOnline understands that only the minister can grant an exemption through a notice in the Gazette and never the Director of Immigration. This magazine understands that the Minister was not granting any exemptions for the VC and the other four members. However, Rore revealed that besides the VC, 500 other immigrants were caught when he made the instruction to correct the anomalies in the matter which he said unfortunately SINU got stuck in this corrective measure. He said the government has lost of lot of revenue through this and “we need to put this matter right.” News@SBMOnline2020