Out of the remaining 37 workers, 15 will land in Kathmandu on April 14 and 22 others will be home on April 16, according to Pushpa Raj Bhattarai, second secretary at the embassy.[break]
“The company they worked for has already deposited money for their air-tickets,” Bhattarai said. “We expect to get the tickets by Tuesday.”
The company -- Regional Gate Trading and Construction -- deposited the money after the embassy warned that it would lodge an official complaint against it in one of Kuwait´s labor courts. The embassy was all set to file the complaint on Sunday. The embassy deferred its plan after the company sought two more days.
“Eventually, the company gave in,” Bhattarai told Republica. According to Bhattarai, the company has agreed to pay even the over-stay charges of all the workers. “If the company backs off at the last moment, we will knock on the court´s door,” he said. Earlier, some Nepali workers, who had reached the airport, had to return after the Kuwaiti immigration officials barred them from flying as they failed to pay over-stay charges. Every worker who over-stays has to pay 2 Kuwaiti dinar. The visas of all Nepali workers have already expired.
The company had brought Nepali workers to Kuwait on visit-visas promising that they would get work-visas later.
However, they were forced to work without work-visas and driving licenses. “We had to work illegally,” said Nilkantha Bhattarai, one of stranded workers who are now lodged in an abandoned building near Min Allah desert of Kuwait. The company abandoned 69 workers in the desert town one month ago after they demanded work-visas and driving licenses. “Our guilt was only that we refused to work illegally,” Bhattarai said.
The Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) has already black-listed the company after it learnt that the company brought the workers on visit-visas. According to the embassy, the labor court of Kuwait has barred the company from bringing in more workers from Nepal for the time being.
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