Lanka cracks the whip

The Department of Immigration and Emigration has earned Rs. 7.5 million through fines imposed on foreigners who have overstayed their visas in Sri Lanka, The Sunday Times learns. Officials say the department is empowered to impose fines in terms of regulations that came into force in March subsequent to a 2007 budget proposal.

According to the regulations a fine of 25 dollars is charged if the overstay is 30 days, 60 dollars for between 30 and 60 days and 100 dollars if the overstay exceeds 60 days. About 400 foreigners have also been deported from the country for violating the immigration law, Controller of Immigration and Emigration, P. B. Abeykoon said adding that many of the offenders had come on tourist visas but stayed on and worked. He said since the Department now has the authority to impose fines they would crackdown on those staying on illegally.

“We issue visas on arrival for a number of countries and this is abused by some who obtain tourist visas and work. Many of them are labourers and night club hostesses,” he said. Most of the labourers come from India and work in iron, steel and gold workshops, farms and construction sites. Employers here prefer to hire Indian labour which is cheaper than that available in the local labour market. The night club hostesses are mainly from China, Russia and Ukraine.

The Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) is yet to conduct any Korean Language Proficiency Exams for this year for those planning to work in Korea, The Sunday Times learns. The last exam was held on December 3 last year.

FEB sources said the delay in holding the proficiency exam has also delayed the process of entering the names of job seekers in the Korean website for employers to select prospective employees.Under the job agreement reached with the South Korean Government, employers in that country choose Sri Lankans or people through the web into which local authorities feed in the names and other details of the job seekers.

Though Sri Lanka has got a job quota of 9000 for this contract year, only about 3600 names have been fed in to the web.“The more names in the web means there are better selection opportunities for the Korean employers but this hasn’t happened in Sri Lanka compared to other countries like Vietnam and Indonesia that make the maximum use of the job quotas offered to them,” the source said.

Korean job seekers have also complained that even the training classes for the language proficiency exam started late in the year giving them little time to learn the language.

Meanwhile FEB chairman Kinsley Ranawaka told The Sunday Times that exams are held on the instructions of the Korean authorities and the language proficiency exam for this year will be held next month.

Mr. Ranawaka said that 43 percent of Sri Lankans who were sent to work in Korea complain that they cannot work given the tough working conditions.

He added that many have also complained of liver diseases and authorities have decided to do a liver function test on those hoping to go to Korea.