399 illegal workers arrested in Oman

Muscat: Oman’s crackdown against illegal residents continued with the arrest of 399 illegal residents in two days and 34 others deported to their respective home countries.

On Monday morning, the Ministry of Manpower arrested 161 expatriate workers for violating the labour laws.

“116 among the arrested were workers laid off by their companies while 33 had [absconded] while 12 had no documents on them at the time of arrest,” Mohammad Bin Mubarak, Adviser to the Manpower Minister, said in a statement released on Monday.

He urged employers not to hire illegal expatriate workforce to avoid fines of no less than 1,000 Omani riyals and no more than 2000 riyals. “We will continue our campaign to root out the illegal workforce from our system,” he said.

Meanwhile, Muscat Command of the Royal Oman Police (ROP) apprehended 238 Asians after a Sunday morning raid in the capital area, according to a press release.

A spokesman for the ROP’s public relations department said the Muscat Command officers, in cooperation with the Special Task Police Command and the joint inspection teams, conducted raids at a number of properties in the Wadi Al Kabir, Wadi Adai and Al Khuwair areas.

Oman offered amnesty to illegal workers in 2010 and a large number of them left the country. However, the number still remains high and authorities are determined to catch illegal expatriates and send them back to their home countries.

According to Salem Bin Saeed Al Badi, Director General for Labour Welfare at the Manpower Ministry, the ministry teams had so far arrested 10,226 illegal residents in Oman in the first nine months of 2013.