Claims company falsely listed him as an absconder
Dubai: An expatriate who filed a complaint against his sponsor for non-payment of salary some 18 months ago claims his employer retaliated by filing a fake absconding case against him, which means he is unable to work in the UAE or return to his home country. He says he has being living on charity for more than 18 months.
Ramadan Ebrahim Al Ahmad, 28, has accused officials at the Ministry of Labour of negligence and misconduct and says the case against him has no legal basis.
Ministry of Labour officials refused to comment on the case as it has been referred to court and emphasised the role of the ministry is to work out a solution between parties before the case goes to court.
“In this particular case, both parties did not agree to abide by the recommendations of the ministry officials at the Labour dispute section,” the source said.
Al Ahamd told Gulf News that he lost his passport the same time the case was filed against him and he could not get another one because of the case against him.
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The Arab employee said he lodged a complaint against his sponsor at the Ministry of Labour but the ministry reported him as an absconder a month after.
“I lodged a complaint at the Ministry of Labour in Dubai against my sponsor for non-payment of salary for almost six months and at the same time I requested the ministry to cancel my residency permit to go back home,” he said.
“Despite the fact I complained on February 14, 2010, and I went several times to the ministry to follow up my case, I was shocked when I was informed by the social researcher at the ministry that my sponsor had reported me as absconding on March 23, 2010.”
Al Ahmad told Gulf News that he came to the UAE at the end of 2008 to work for a company owned by a fellow countryman.
“I worked for a Dubai-based company for almost a year before they gave me a residency visa,” said.
He said that he continued working for the company for Dh3,000 a month.
“They did not pay my salary for almost seven months. I informed the owner that I needed to get my salary to live or I would complain to the ministry. The owner, however, did not bother to listen to my plea for my salary,” he said.
The ministry’s social researcher, M.S., told me the ministry would contact me after hearing from my employer but they failed to call. I returned to the ministry after nine days to check about the fate of my complaint, he said.
The ministry got one of its researchers to accompany me to check the company’s premises and investigate my complaint and we discovered the company was closed.
The researcher asked me to wait for the ministry to call in a couple of days but it never did. On March 23, I went to the ministry to check about my case but the official told me I had been reported as an absconder and a case had been filed against me.
Since then, Al Ahmad said he visited the Ministry of Labour several times to sort out the issue. “Finally, the ministry issued a report about the company that it was found closed and the ministry proposed the transfer of the unpaid salary complaint to the labour court.”
He said the sponsor never showed up at court. During this time, I lost my passport and realised I can’t go back home before finalising the pending case.
“I am stuck here because of the malicious absconding case. I just want to go back to my country.”
-With gulfnews.com input
