KATHMANDU: It is mandatory to show related banking documents before lodging a police complaint regarding financial appropriation of Rs 50,000 or more in connection with foreign employment. Last time, an agent working for guaranteeing foreign employment and another manpower agency ended up appropriating Rs 5 to 8 million without any supporting documents issued by the banks to support the financial transactions.

A complaint to this effect has been lodged with the Foreign Employment Department but the department is in a fix as there is no trace of that transaction through the banking channels. Cases of financial misappropriation and cheating are increasing in recent months as it is easy to dupe the Nepalese workforce in the name of foreign employment.

With such a high rate of unemployment in Nepal, the criminal gangs are actively working as agents and connect themselves with manpower agencies to lure the Nepalese citizens of all age groups to make them pay a hefty sum of money without involving banks in it in consideration of taking them to foreign countries through legal or illegal channels.

Bhism Kumar Bhusal, Executive Director of Department of Foreign Employment, says that increasing trend of financial misappropriation and cheating in name of foreign unemployment will be curbed if complainants do show evidences of money transactions through banks. Recently, a number of manpower agencies have taken a hefty sum of money from the Nepalese job aspirants in name of managing visa for European countries, the USA, Japan and others. There is a provision in law to reimburse the extra amount of money charged by the manpower agency back to the complainant. There is again a rule set by the government that more than Rs 10,000 cannot be charged as service fees for sending a person for foreign employment. The complaints received by the Department clearly show that rules are being violated and excessive amounts are being charged.

No recorded evidence available for cheating in consultancy

Even educational consultancies working for sending Nepalese students to different destinations in foreign countries for education and research work are involved in looting money from their families. Victims of such cheating and fraud are also filing complaints with the Foreign Employment Department.

In the current financial year, a number of such complaints have been received by the department. However, these complaints are not backed up with strong documents as evidence as money gets transferred from one hand to another of which no proof exists whatsoever except the trust between the two parties. The Department cannot do much in cases where financial transactions between the parties take place privately without the involvement of financial institutions.

Educational consultancies are running a racket of issuing forged visa for sending students to foreign countries like India and other countries, says Hari Prasad Gyawali, Director of Foreign Employment Department. The owners and officials of these consultancies are now living in India and in other countries as they fear arrest and legal action here in Nepal. They have been operating like criminal gangs. Manpower agencies and educational consultancies are comfortably working from foreign soils to trap the Nepalese workers and students to mint money. Has the government any plans to stop their activities and bring them home to face the law? A million dollar question!