Fahad Jaber Al Kawari (left), Director of Labour Relation Department at the Ministry of Labour; Mohammed Ali Al Meer, Director of Labour Inspection Department; Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Acting Director-General of Qatar Chamber; and Fawaz Al Rayes, Director
The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs is set to launch a new electronic visa system which is going to replace the permanent committee of the Ministry for recruiting labour from abroad.
The new system aims at facilitating the procedure for recruiting labour from abroad by business sector, investors and employers in the State of Qatar, said a senior official from the Ministry.
The new system will also replace the permanent recruitment committee which was facilitating recruiting from abroad and the system will carry out the committees duties to facilitate procedures, said Fawaz Al Rayes, Director of Recruitment Department at the Ministry.
The new system will provide the employers with all needs and included all necessary details such as careers, number of employees required, nationalities, professions and may other details Al Rayes added.
Moreover, Al Rayes highlighted that the ministry is seeking feedback from the companies and employers before officially launching the new system which will be launched in the near time after addressing all the remarks made by the concerned entities and users.
Al Rayes was speaking at Seminar held at the Qatar Chamber yesterday to introduce the new system to representative of companies and business sectors. The meeting was attended by a number of Qatari business personalities representatives of companies, along official from the Ministry of Labour including Mohammed Ali Al Meer, Director of Labour inspection Department and Fahad Jaber Al Kawari, Director of Labour Relation Department, and Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Acting Director General of Qatar Chamber.
In his presentation Ministry’s recruitment manager Fawaz Al Rayes said the fully-electronic system allows companies to file a request to bring employees through a platform.
The Human Resources department can then fill an electronic form with information about the company and number of employees required, their nationalities and other details.
For his part, the Director of Labour Inspection Department Mohammed Ali Al Meer said that the new system was welcomed by business sector and has many advantages that save time and energy of employers as well meet the needs of the local market for manpower.
When the application is approved for visa processing applicants have a chance of one year. In other word the visa approval for labour recruitment from, abroad is valid for one year, he added. It also allows to fill more applications as the system makes the procedures more easier and give freedom to the employer to select the needed nationalities and number of employees, he added.
He noted that the beta version will be launched this month, in order to address any potential issue before the final version is released.
All the observations will be taken into consideration and the Ministry’s representatives will include them into the system in order to facilitate procedures and the choices for employers, said the Acting Director General of Qatar Cahmber, Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi.
Sharqi noted that the new electronic visa system will be value added for businessmen, especially as it will facilitate access to visa services and recruitment of expatriates without any obstacles.
This joint seminar is aimed to make the businessmen play a role and give input to the new system before of its full implementation he said adding that businessmen and companies also can highlight the difficulties they have faced when they were using the online system.
Al Sharqi pointed out that the role of the Chamber is to follow-up and coordinated need of employers and the ministry, in order to give their comments to help the ministry develop the system.
The Chamber will also hold another meeting before launching the system to check it before presenting it to the private sector, He added that the services provided by the new electronic visa system are either free or with convenient price, in line with the services provided by some ministries and government agencies.
On the other hand, Qatar Chamber yesterday urged all companies to quickly fill the electronic questionnaire aiming to assess the damages caused by the siege imposed on Qatar before next Thursday (Augsut 17) which is the deadline for submitting the required data and documentation for the losses and damages resulted from the siege.
The Chamber said it is making estimation to damages caused to Qatari companies since the beginning of the siege, to present before the Compensation Claims Committee.
Saif bin Youssef Al Kuwari, Chairman of the Committees & Business Councils at QC said QC has placed the questionnaire in it website www.qatarchamber.com in order to have accurate information about the damages caused by the siege.
This will concerned bodies to avoid exclusion of requests and all are required for upload the necessary documents he added.
He said that every company affected must fill out the questionnaire for each of its business activities. He added that the damages mentioned should be the actual one and not the expected losses.
He added that they have received 60 files so far. On the next steps, Al Kuwari said that the chamber will then present the files to the Compensation Claims Committee, in order to facilitate the work of legal experts and those working on sorting the applcaitions.
