Parliament has debated on a motion accusing three cabinet Ministers of violating the Employment Act and eventually voted to forward the motion and subsequent submissions to the Parliament Committee on Government Oversight.
The motion was submitted by the MP for Thulhaadhoo Constituency Hisan Hussain who named Homeland Minister Ali Ihusan, Labor Minister Dr. Mariyam Maria, and Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed as the Ministers who had violated the law.
The motion stated that under the Employment Act assigning migrant quotas and giving employment permits to foreigners fall under the mandate of the Homeland Ministry and that the Labor Ministry is assigned the mandate to form and implement the regulations under the law.
MP Hisan's motion also noted that the 'Ministry' named under the Employment Act is the labor Ministry and that the Homeland Ministry has no legal power to make decisions based on the law.
The motion also touched on how the government had decided to increase the quota of unskilled workers to Bangladesh and that while the law allows only 100,000 workers from each country, the latest statistics show that the Bangladeshi population in the Maldives exceeds this.
It also noted that the Homeland Ministry announced that the Maldives has stopped bringing in unskilled workers from other countries and this would in turn make it a matter of national security. MP Hisan also said that the Economic Ministry deleted its 2023 Foreign Labor Statistic report from its website and that this was done illegally.
The motion was accepted for debate at the Parliament with votes from 23 out of the 29 MPs present at today's session. The MPs debated on the motion during which the MP for Villigilli Constituency Saud Hussain added submissions to the original motion.
He proposed to forward the motion to the Government Oversight Committee as well as start an inquiry on the matter and find out why the labor statistic report was deleted from the Economic Ministry website and take action.
While 32 MPs took part in the vote, 29 voted to forward the motion to the committee along with MP Saud's submissions.
