Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs
What is the role of the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADLSA)? It is responsible for protecting the welfare of workers via handling labour affairs justly and efficiently. It not only seeks to provide social protection for the Qatari citizens in the country, but it also provides countless services to residents here and abroad.
The MADLSA functions to govern human resource affairs, labour laws, general HR policies, nationalization policies, implementation of initiatives and approvals, studies and follow-ups of budget considerations, and assistance in various governmental organizations, modernizations, simplifications, and technical performance among others.
For instance, the MADLSA Mobile SMS Service receives SMS from registered mobiles regarding the application for certain e-services. This includes provision of company statistics via email as well as details of labour approvals upon the request of the company, renewing outdated approvals for labour via company request, setting schedules for meeting with the Permanent Recruitment Committee for companies and the Permanent Recruitment Committee for families, extending personal number for residencies, inquiring about labour approvals, querying about labour amendment requests, and the like.
The MADLSA also takes charge of the Qatar Wage Protection System (WPS) by monitoring the performance of companies when it comes to due salaries and compensation for workers in the State. The WPS makes sure that employees justly receive their salaries via an electronic salary transfer system using bank transfer. Companies must be duly registered and must be authorised to use the WPS. MADLSA not only supervises all of the salary payments, but it also maintains a comprehensive database of all employees and their salary history records. This is to ensure that workers are always paid promptly and correctly, effectively protecting employees from late payments and non-payments no matter what the working sector.
This promotes a happy and safe environment with the appropriate protection of rights for labour groups all over the State. Should there be any late payments or non-payment of salaries, the employer will have to face costly penalties and hefty fines. All salaries and benefits must be duly paid in Qatari Riyal as payable to a worker, and must be transferred to the bank account of the employee in Qatar. The payment must be done once a month at the very least.
For companies that violate these provisions, penalties include even imprisonment not exceeding one month. The fine may be no less than QR 2,000 and no more than QR 6,000. Should a company not comply with the WPS, it may be suspended until further notice, being unable to process any matters related to the Ministry. This includes visa processing and work permits as well. As such, it is imperative that you have a trusted business consultancy partner to help liaise with the MADLSA to ensure that all payments, submissions, paperwork, and documentary requirements are submitted completely and on time. This will greatly help reduce the risk of non-compliance leading to costly penalties and detrimental fines to your company in Qatar.
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