Nearly 225,000 firms face action

No grace period for them, only penalties, the UAE Minister of Labour Dr Ali bin Abdullah Al Kaabi has warned companies which failed to open bank accounts of their employees. Talking to Khaleej Times yesterday, Dr Al Kaabi said all such companies that did not open bank accounts of their staff, as instructed by the Labour Ministry, were sure to face stiff penalties.

“There is no grace period for them because we had announced the decision in June 2007. Hence the companies had full six months to comply with the Cabinet Decision No. 1/133 for the year 2007 to transfer the workers’ salaries to their bank accounts, to be paid electronically (by ATM cards),” said Dr Al Kaabi. The errant companies, said the minister, now face suspension of their activities at the Ministry of Labour (MoL). They may no longer be issued work permits or get the sub-contracts attested, he noted. Dr Al Kaabi stressed that the decision was aimed at protecting the rights of workers.

“There are more than 2.8 million workers in the UAE and we work to protect their rights, of which the wage is the most important. Every worker has the right to get his/her salary on time without delay,” he made it clear. Meanwhile, commenting on the errant companies, Obaid Rashid Al Zahmi, assistant under-secretary at the MoL, told Khaleej Times: “More than 90 per cent of the companies in the country have not opened bank accounts of their employees.

The number is huge; it comes to some 225,000 companies out of the total 250,000 companies in the country.” However, many companies abided by the decision despite the large manpower they employ. Statistics collected by the MoL, for example, show that some of the big contracting firms opened bank accounts for more than 250,000 of their staff, he said.