The foreign employment department has stopped the permission given to send workers to Israel's agricultural sector through the manpower company. After the newly appointed Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security Dol Prasad Aryal 'held' the procedure brought by the manpower company to allow them to send workers to Israel, the department also temporarily stopped the permission given to continue the recruitment process.

In Israel, there is a provision for only agricultural students to go to long-term care centers through the government system as caregivers, and to the Learn and Earn program through the university. Outgoing Labor Minister Sharatsingh Bhandari issued a procedure for sending workers to Israel through manpower companies. Based on that, the department for the first time allowed Kathmandu International Incorporated Pvt Ltd to send two hundred workers to the agricultural sector. 

I talked about Israel with the Israeli ambassador in a courtesy meeting a few days ago. He put something surprising in it. There were joint secretaries of the ministry," Minister Aryal said at a press conference held at the Ministry of Labor last Tuesday. "The employees of the ministry, who signed the Israeli visa file, are also witnesses. In this, no agreement has been exchanged between Israel and Nepal's manpower to work any V-to-V (through Manpower).' 

Minister Aryal said that the Ministry does not have any information on the availability of workers through other mechanisms other than Caregiver and Learn and Earn, and that they are preparing to publish the truth by investigating the file related to the involvement of manpower in Israel. The Israeli government is not aware of any official agreement with Israel. There is no truth to this. The correct ones, the demand letters that came to the market, who has corrected them? Who has done what? Please allow me to investigate it for a few days," he said. We are studying the works done by the ministries and departments. The answer will come after that study.' 

Minister of Labor Aryal has not only "held" the procedures for sending workers to South Korea and Japan through manpower companies. He has formed a three-member committee chaired by Joint Secretary Govinda Prasad Rizal to study these issues and submit suggestions.

'Procedures for Sending Skilled Workers to Korea-2080' was published on the Ministry's official website on February 5 as approved by the Ministry of Labor on February 17. The procedure has opened the way for Manpower to send skilled workers (E-7 visa system) to Korea. E-7 visas for skilled manpower are of categories 1, 2, 3 and 4. 1 of E-7 has engineers, doctors, professors, expert chefs and cooks from various fields. 2 has Electrician, Waylander, Painter, HA, Anami, Restaurant Cook, JTA and Barber. 3 and 4 include general workers and workers moving from E-9 (EPS) to E-7. 

There is an opinion that sending workers through manpower to E-7 will increase the possibility of fraud and affect the EPS system itself, while the other opinion is that the EPS will not be affected and the Nepalis will have access to the skilled sector of Korea. In the midst of this controversy, on January 10, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal gave a written instruction to the Ministry of Labor saying, "Since there is currently a system for sending Nepalese workers to South Korea only through the EPS system, please coordinate the work of renewing the labor contract with the Korean government to include the E-7 visa in the same system". 

However, this procedure did not last even a day on the Ministry's website. Minister Aryal has not taken ownership of this procedure. There is a lot of confusion regarding South Korea's E-7. It has nothing to do with the Ministry. "There is no labor agreement with Korea," he said, "The procedures made by the ministry are being re-evaluated and discussed by forming a working group. There is no MoU with Korea as it has been said that nothing will be done on this matter until the task force submits a report.

Minister Aryal has also stopped the procedure that was implemented to allow Japan to take specific skilled workers in the involvement of manpower. This procedure was issued on January 25 last. Nothing has been decided about Japan either. We are also looking at the procedure of Japan. Even if we have selected any manpower, a working group has been formed to study whether the selection process was correct or not," says Minister Aryal.

Nepal and Japan signed a labor agreement in 2019 to allow Japan to take workers with specific skills on 5-year work visas in 14 regions. The then Labor Minister Gokarn Bista made an agreement to recruit only through the government mechanism. However, then the labor leaders were preparing to involve a third party saying that it could not be sent through Japan's government mechanism. As the issues related to the recruitment process and cost of sending workers were not resolved, neither the workers were able to go through the government mechanism, nor the manpower company got the responsibility. In the meantime, Japan has taken in more than a million foreign workers from other sources. Institutionally, not a single Nepali worker has been taken from Nepal. Instead, educational consultants associated with Japan started sending workers illegally with individual work permits.

On July 19 of last year, in the meeting of the joint working group, Chotumo Nakagawa, the assistant deputy minister of Japan, made it clear that the government will not be involved in the recruitment process. The recruitment process is done by the private sector. The government only monitors the recruitment process," said Nakagawa. On top of that, the Ministry of Labor issued on January 25, "Procedures for Sending Certain Skilled Workers to Japan-2080" is in dispute. The provision that the manpower company that collects demand letters in Japan should have entered into an agreement with its own contact branch or registered support organization that is legally registered there is in dispute.