UAE ministers to be questioned during Federal National

Ministers will be questioned about a new hospital in Masafi, a federal law on national medical insurance and the bank surety for workers in private sector, among other issues at Tuesday's session of the Federal National Council (FNC). Questions will be posed to ministers also about the creation of a Sharia-based watchdog to oversee Islamic banks and a company to collate borrowers' information. In his question, Salem Mohammad Bin Huwaiden, a representative from Sharjah, demanded that a Dh3,000 bank surety for every worker in the private sector be scrapped more than two years after the implementation of the wage protection system. "The bank deposit has become useless ever since the Wage Protection System (WPS) has been implemented more than two years ago," Bin Huwaiden said. Article continues below WPS is an initiative to safeguard payment of workers' wages via transfers through selected financial institutions, authorised and regulated by the Government. This initiative greatly enhanced the Government's ability to implement preventive measures to reduce labour disputes pertaining to wages and offered solutions that guarded workers and employers against keeping large amount of cash at work places. Bin Huwaiden said more than Dh1 billion is a huge burden on businesses, which increases overheads and prices of real estate and other services provided by the companies. "This huge amount of money is of no use for the Government, while banks are the only beneficiary," Bin Howaiden said. The representative demanded that the surety be scrapped or a system be found to benefit from it in medical insurance, social surety or creating jobs for citizens. Another question will be posed to acting Minister of Health, Abdul Rahman Al Owais about the new Masafi hospital, which was built by a donation from President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who assured the importance of completing operational phase two of the project so that the hospital could play its role in serving the outpatient visitors either in the clinics or emergency wards. Another query will be posed concerning the establishment of a company to gather and keep credit information about borrowers. The UAE's first credit bureau was launched in 2006.