Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique may still this year close an agreement concerning labour export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Notícias writes today.
The commitment was made by Mozambique’s Minister of Labour and Social Security, Margarida Talapa, and the ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Mozambique, Fahd Abdullah Aleisa, after a meeting.
Commitment to the exchange of labour between the two states has already merited ministerial visits to both countries in order to study feasibility and opportunity in practical terms.
In May, 2015, representatives of the Saudi Manpower Solutions Co. (SAMSCO), a Saudi private employment agency, visited Mozambique and expressed an interest in recruiting Mozambican labour when they met officials of the Ministry of Labour.
Subsequently, in December of that year, a delegation from the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security headed by the then deputy minister, visited Saudi Arabia with the aim of obtaining information about the working, living and housing conditions of foreign workers hired by employment agencies in general and by SMASCO in particular.
During that visit, it was found, through the Mozambican Embassy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that there were around 40 Mozambicans already working in the kingdom, mostly in aluminium processing plants. They had been hired directly.
It was in this context that the leaders of the two countries expressed their interest in formalising the recruitment of Mozambican labour and their employment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“We would like to take this opportunity to request Your Excellency’s support in the search for speedy channels in the exchange of correspondence between the parties, including in obtaining a response to the Mozambican proposal sent to the counterparty in May of this year. We express our readiness to sign the agreement at the best opportunity, preferably during a ministerial visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Minister Talapa told Ambassador Fahd Abdullah Aleisa.
Talapa also expressed regret that no agreement had yet been signed seven years after the beginning of negotiations, mainly due to lack of consensus on small matters which could easily be rectified.
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