Relatives cannot be reported ‘absconding’

Relatives cannot be reported ‘absconding’
By Ahmed Abdul Aziz (Our staff reporter) KHALEEJ TIMES 5 February 2008

ABU DHABI — The employers who hire their relatives in their firms are not allowed to file ‘absconding’ reports with the Ministry of Labour (MoL) in case the relative stops reporting for work, according to a senior official at the ministry.

Ahmed Al Besher, Legal Advisor to the Disputes Department in the MoL, told Khaleej Times that companies’ owners who recruit their relatives (uncles, nephews, brothers or sisters) have no right to file ‘absconding’ report against them, according to the Labour law.

“If the relative is not a reference, so who will be?,” asked Al Besher, noting that the MoL’s legal advisers refer to the relatives in some cases to find the labourers or get information about them to investigate the reports of absconding.”

“Hence, the ministry doesn’t receive any ‘absconding’ report because we consider it as incorrect reports so it would not be acceptable to receive from employers,” added Al Besher.

The statement came after an Egyptian owner of a services company filed an ‘absconding’ report against his employee who is also his nephew.

“The employee took emergency leave for a week and he travelled to his country without informing his employer and spent more than 15 days,” said Al Besher.

The employer believed that the employee had left the company forever because there were some problems between them so he had filed the ‘absconding’ report.

“The employers should be careful when they take the step of filing an ‘absconding’ on their employees because if it is a false report they will face penalties such as a fine of Dh10,000, downgrading the company’s category as well as suspending the firm’s activities for three months,” said Al Besher.

“In that case we have the employer remove the ‘absconding’ report because he confessed that it was by mistake,” added Al Besher.

He explained that if any employee who is the employer’s relative, does not resume work after emergency or annual, the employer seek cancellation of the visa with a six-month ban.