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UAE agency under cloud

Fourth Force not on list agencies on Consulate website.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Suspicions over a private agency being referred by some officials of the UAE consulate here for submitting police clearance certificate (PCC) or other documents have strengthened with the UAE consul-general maintaining that no new agency has been engaged. This newspaper had reported the other day that additional financial burden was being imposed on job aspirants to UAE as some officials at consulate had referred the candidates to an agency named Fourth Force Surveillance Private Limited, situated opposite the consulate building.

The agency had demanded around Rs 6,400 as service charge for submitting the PCC and other documents at the consulate for processing. Consul -general Jamal Husein Rahma Husein al Zaabi told Mr Shashi Tharoor MP that no fresh changes were made in the process of submitting documents at the consulate after PCC was made mandatory for UAE job visas. No fresh fees were also imposed. The PCC issued by the police only need to be submitted along with other documents at the consulate as per the existing procedures.

According to the MP’s office, the consul-general also said that some private agencies were formally engaged to submit documents and the names of those agencies were given on the consulate’s official website. However, the name of Fourth Force was not seen among the list of authorised agencies on the UAE embassy website. Though DC sought clarifications from Fourth Force over e-mail and SMS, they have not responded.

An official of the company, when contacted over phone, said that details could not be given over phone. Some candidates who turned up at the consulate had shared with DC the slips handed over by the consulate staff containing contact details of Fourth Force. The MP discussed the matter with the consul- general in the wake of allegations that officials of UAE consulate here were redirecting candidates turning up to submit PCC to a nearby private agency. He also told the MP that when the UAE government decided to make PCC mandatory for job visas from February 4, the consulate sent letters to the police chiefs of all the five South Indian states being served by the consulate. The Kerala police chief responded and informed that the police would issue PCC to the candidates and the fee would be '1,000.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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