The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration or OWWA says that officials are still discussing the mechanism process on how overseas Filipino workers can claim their unpaid salaries from Saudi Arabia.
OWWA estimates that there are 12,000 to 15,000 OFWs who are still unpaid after working in Saudi Arabia.
This is higher compared to the Department of Labor and Employment’s number of around 9,000 unpaid workers.
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In a statement on Sunday, DOLE said that Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello is optimistic that the payment will be made in December during the visit of the Middle East nation’s labor minister Ahmed al-Rajhi.
“The unpaid salaries of our OFWs can be settled just in time for Christmas,” Bello said in a statement.
The labor chief also revealed that the Saudi government is also appealing to lift the ban on some big Arab recruitment agencies which were also behind the unpaid claims.
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Bello said he assured Al Rahji the Philippines would lift the deployment ban in exchange for the payment of salaries of the OFWs.
The OFWs were repatriated by the government in 2016 through the help of state lawyers. They won the case over their unsettled pay in KSA.
Despite the legal victory, however, the KSA government has yet to pay the OFWs. (TDT)
