Bahrain MPs to review long-awaited ‘Free Visa’ committee report

The Parliament is expected to discuss and review a long-pending report on Bahrain’s worsening ‘free visa’ issue in its next session. 

Discussion on the report, tabled by a special investigative committee, has been postponed more than once by House in the past two-months citing various reasons.  

The report, by the eight-member committee formed 34 months ago, deals with the causes behind the phenomenon of ‘free visa’ and solutions to eradicate it.

At the time of forming the committee, the Representatives Council viewed that the exacerbating free visa labour issue is negatively impacting the national economy and the social fabric in Bahrain.

The current report includes suggestions from the ministries including Labour and Social Development, Industry, Commerce and Industry, Interior and Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning as well as Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), municipal councils of the four governorates of the Kingdom, Bahrain Chamber for Commerce and Industry and several labour unions and societies.

As reported earlier by DT News, some of the suggested solutions include rationalising and lessening the issuance of work permits and commercial registrations, targeting illegal street vendors, enhancing supervision on labour camps, activating community partnership and immediate deportation of violators.

As part of an official effort to tackle the issue, LMRA launched “Flexible Work Permits” last July, allowing certain categories of illegal workers, who meet conditions, to work and reside in Bahrain without the need of an employer.  The permits basically give foreign employees of certain professions the liberty of working for several employers at the same time. 

The method was also formally adopted by the United Nations to form part of a draft Global Compact on Migration due to be adopted following the International Migration Conference in 2018.