DUBAI: Filipino business owners were elated with the Cabinet’s recent decision to remove the Dhs3,000 bond per worker, saying the money, which has just been “sleeping in the banks” may now be invested in expansions and other services.
“It’s a big relief,” Thejmal Sultan, Hot Palayok operations manager told The Filipino Times. “The money has been remaining stagnant in the bank, sleeping. Now, the company will have more cash flow that it can invest into expansion, or other business units,” he added.
Hot Palayok operates under management of Hospitality Catering, which itself has some 1,200 employees, said Sultan. The refund will total at Dh3.6 million.
“The amount deposited will be coming back to the company account in the bank. We are very, very happy,” said Sultan.
Malou Prado, CEO of MPQ Tourism, a travel and tours agency, shared Sultan’s thoughts saying, “The Dh3,000 bond makes it very hard for business owners to employ, considering that the amount is on top of other expenses like processing, medical exams and insurance among others.
“The money is stuck in the bank. It can be put into good use like exapansion,” Prado said. MPQ Tourism has 10 employees.
Likewise, Michelle Guinto, managing director of a CMG Group, a cargo forwarding company, is one happy businessperson. “Now we can use it as an additional working capital for operations and business expansion,” she said. The company has around 30 employees.
“We can use that money as reserve or emergency fund. We can also use some of it for our promotional campaigns as well as in charitable projects like supporting distressed OFWs at POLO-OWWA,” said Marz Marcial, business development officer at Makati Express Cargo.
The Dh3,000 guarantee fund per worker was replaced with a comprehensive insurance scheme at a cost of a mere Dh60 per worker per year and covers the workers’ entitlements in terms of end-of-service benefits, vacation allowance, overtime allowance, unpaid wages, worker’s return ticket and cases of work injury, in which the insurance coverage amounts to Dh20,000 per worker, according to His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s website.
The scrapping of the worker guarantee requirement, reported 999, official publication of the Ministry of the Interior, “unlocks Dhs14 billion currently held by the government in these guarantees, and the money will circulate in the local economy.”
Prior to this move, employers were required the Dh3,000 guarantee to be handed over at the time of hiring, which would serve as a bond to settle any disputes or to pay the worker in case the employer vanished.
