Sri Lankan workers stranded at airport
By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter
About 25 workers from Sri Lanka, who arrived in two groups to take up jobs with two different firms in Qatar, were yesterday found to be stranded at the Hamad International Airport (HIA) for several hours as no representative of their employers turned up to receive them.
One of the two groups had arrived from Colombo on a Sri Lankan Airlines flight at 9. 30pm on Friday. When this reporter met them some 13 hours later around 10.30am yesterday, some of them said they had been without even a glass of water since their arrival at the airport.
The other group that came on an Etihad Airways flight via Abu Dhabi in the early hours yesterday also had a similar experience .
“At Colombo, our recruiter told us that that we would be received at the airport and taken to our accommodation by someone from the company. However, we have been waiting for the arrival of the company representative since we arrived here last night,” said a senior member of the group, who said he had worked with a company in Doha more than 8 years ago.
Inquiries found that only this person, seemingly in his late 40s, had worked in the country earlier. It was found that none of them had any money with them to buy even a bottle of water.
Most of the other members were first timers in the Gulf region.
Realising the predicament of the newly-arrived workers, the recruiters of one of the two groups in Sri Lanka was contacted on a mobile number that one of them gave to this journalist.
The recruiter, identified himself as Buhari and said he had not been able to contact Qatar company representatives since Friday night as their phone seemed to be switched off.
The same was the experience of this journalist as well when efforts were made to contact the employer’s representative in Doha.
However, a couple of hours later, on being informed, a senior Sri Lankan embassy official swung into action. Things improved soon after she sent a representative from the embassy to the airport. Later she told Gulf Times that a man claiming to be the representative of one of the two employers came to collect the workers.
The embassy officials gave him a stern warning about the inexplicable delay in receiving the workers.
The Lankan diplomat also said the mission would lodge a complaint with the Labour Department about the way the company officials messed up the whole thing.
She also said the mission would explore the possibility of blacklisting the two companies.
“If this is the kind of treatment that they gave to their workers on the very first day of their arrival, I wonder what would be in store for these workers in the coming days,” she said.
Inquiries made with the workers and their recruiters in Colombo revealed that the Qatar employers were informed well in advance about the date and time of their arrival in Doha.
The diplomat later told Gulf Times all the workers have been collected by their employers’ representatives from the airport.
The official who was deputed by the Sri Lankan mission remained at the airport until the last one of them was received by his employer’s representative.
Commenting on the incident, a social worker said embassies of Asian countries which send large numbers of workers to this country may be allowed to set up help desks, in co-ordination with the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the Labour Department, at the airport.
“Such assistance desks would go a long way in helping newcomers as more workers are expected to arrive in the coming days to join many ongoing and forthcoming projects.”
Workshop on leadership skills
A workshop on leadership skills development and assessment for Ministry of Interior (MoI) officers, organised by the Leadership Development Centre (LDC) in association with College of Policing in the UK, concluded recently. The workshop, which was conducted by seven MoI officers certified as skills assessment trainers, was aimed at assessing the leadership skills of officers who would be future leaders. The closing ceremony was attended by Brig Badr Ibrahim al-Ghanim, director of the Technical Office, MoI. He said the strategic aim of the LDC was to meet young leaders and develop them accordingly to cope with the various modern developments in policing.
Interior Ministry ‘devises strategy to check crimes’
Colonel Jamal al-Ka’abi, director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the Ministry of Interior, has said that they have developed a strategy that will be updated and evaluated every three months, in order to reduce crimes and to maintain security, safety of citizens and residents, local Arabic daily Arrayah has reported.
He also referred to a number of new projects in the pipeline, including an advanced operations hub -- the monitoring and tracking room, which would provide information support and enhance communication with security personnel in the CID and other departments.
Colonel al-Ka’abi said the strategy is aimed at reducing the crime rate, developing security mechanisms and further enhancing the abilities of police personnel. He added that the new monitoring room would also co-ordinate with police patrols for the tracking and collection of evidence through a unified security system, electronic security archives and surveillance cameras. Further, Colonel al-Ka’abi advised members of the community to avoid falling victim to financial fraud through mobile phones and the Internet.
