I am confused about how the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) works. For example, when you go there, you will find a long queue of people waiting to take tokens. Usually, you will get three tokens of three different departments and have to wait for hours for your turn.
You will reach one counter after three to four hours, and when your token number is called you will miss the turn because you are busy in another department. Then be ready to come again the next morning. This is one case.
Sometimes, you reach a counter after hours of waiting only to find that it is not the one you are supposed to go because the receptionist issued a wrong token.
The officials are taking months to process the cases which should be done in 10 working days. The reason they give is incorrect documentation but there is hardly anyone there to guide you properly and sometimes it takes days to find out what exactly to do.
Other types of cases are as follows:
* Employee visa is valid but wife’s visa is cancelled.
* Employee visa is valid but child’s visa is cancelled.
l Employee is married but shown never married
*Employee visa and wife’s visa are valid but children under 12 have to get family visa again from the LMRA.
The LMRA has become a nightmare for the employers in general, and expats in particular. The general impression is that when it comes to expats, no-one is bothered to make things quick. I am surprised that how a BETA version of Expatriate Management System (EMS) can be implemented. It never happens anywhere in the world. They launch the BETA version for testing and feedbacks.
The older system was so much easier. It used to take just a day or two to get a residence permit from the immigration department. Likewise, the procedure for work permits was also simple.
I request immediate action to make expats’ life easy and increase the working hours so that delays in processing can be overcome.
Simultaneously, people should be deployed to correct the data problems/software bugs on a war-footing to establish the confidence of foreign investors as well as hardworking expats.
A Public Well-wisher
* An LMRA spokesman said: “It seems the reader is listening to rumours and stories from other people without getting a first hand experience with the LMRA.
“We never claimed that we have no issues, but we are always doing our best to solve them and we listen to everyone who has a problem or a suggestion. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.
Given the breadth of our services as well as the integration with other government departments and ministries: Central Informatics Organisation (CIO), General Directorate of Nationality, Passports and Residence, Social Insurance Organisation (SIO), Ministry of Industry and Commerce and others and the amount of information shared between them, we need to keep everything organised.
“Naturally, one would need a ticket for LMRA customer service desk and a different ticket to go to the CIO counters for the CPR cards issuance, or the SIO counter to update the list of Bahraini employees and so on.
“We have a call centre answering all kinds of queries and dealing with 800 calls and 120 e-mails per day as well as dedicated e-services teams on the ground and the 8th floor helping all the employers’ authorised or responsible persons to apply online, saving them a lot time and effort.
“More than 70 per cent of applications since the first of October were successfully processed online and we are encouraging more employers to move to the online channel which offers an enhanced and relatively speedier service.
“Given all the existing channels of communications with LMRA, we find it hard to believe that the reader could not get the right information from us.
“If any employer has any specific case or issue with an application, we will be more than happy to help him/her. They can call us on 17506055 or e-mail lmra@lmra.gov.bh to give all the relevant details”.