Kathmandu, Jan 4: The government has moved ahead with a plan to form a special task force to investigate fraud linked to foreign employment, aiming to clear a growing pile of pending cases and speed up justice for victims.
The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has started the process to set up the task force. It will include officials from the Department of Foreign Employment, the Office of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and security agencies.
The department is currently handling more than 35,000 fraud cases. Hundreds of new complaints are filed daily. Each year, over 5,000 cases are registered, while many older files remain unresolved. The ministry says the new mechanism is meant to deal with both fresh and backlog cases in a faster and simpler way.
Labour Minister Rajendra Singh Bhandari had announced soon after taking office that controlling foreign employment fraud would be a top priority. Following that pledge, a decision was taken at the secretary level to bring all key agencies under one coordinated structure, ministry spokesperson Pitambar Ghimire said.
The task force is expected to include up to 15 members. Its mandate will focus on quick investigation of fraud cases and addressing long-standing problems in the foreign employment sector.
Ghimire said the task force is being formed to allow the use of extra manpower. The ministry has already written to the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking additional police personnel.
At present, investigations at the Department of Foreign Employment are handled by a police team under the command of a police inspector. The Labour Ministry has asked for security personnel to be deployed under a deputy superintendent of police.
The ministry says the new structure will end delays caused by files moving back and forth among the department, police, and government prosecutors. Victims often face long waits because each agency works separately. The plan is to carry out investigation, monitoring, case withdrawal, and mediation from a single point.
Ghimire said police manpower will be increased and deployed to work jointly with departmental staff under one command. Action will also be taken against brokers who are often seen operating inside the department.
Labour and migration expert Rameshwar Nepal questioned the need for a new task force, saying existing laws and mechanisms could deliver results if used properly. He warned that past task force reports have gone unused and said the real need is more manpower and better working procedures.
Advocate Som Luintel said forming a task force is not wrong, but the main problems remain staff shortages, slow investigations, and broker networks. He said real impact will come from faster investigations, quicker case resolution, and victim-focused processes, not from creating a paper body.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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