Authorities in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district shut down National Development Universal Co Ltd on Jan 4 for illegally selling $5 application forms to Cambodian workers seeking employment in South Korea without a license from the Ministry of Commerce, officials said.
“We shut it down because it doesn’t have a license from the Commerce Ministry,” said Khuoch Sreng, deputy governor of the district.
The Burmese and Sri Lankan-owned company, located on Monireth Boulevard, started selling the forms more than a week ago, said Seng Kakda, director of Labor and Vocational Training Ministry’s Employment and Manpower Department. The work it offered included construction, garment and household jobs.
“This company doesn’t have a license to employ people to work in Korea,” Seng Kakda said by phone Friday. “It is doing this against the law.”
The company’s Deputy General Manager Mom Rinva said the company had been operating for about a month before being ordered to close. He said NDU recruits workers for positions in Qatar as well as South Korea.
In addition to the $5 application fee, it charged $30 for a medical checkup and a $30 training fee in the language and customs of the host country. The company would then pay visa, airline and travel costs. Mom Rinva added that for those who passed medical check-ups, positions were “guaranteed.”
He said that if all goes well in Cambodia, his company may expand its operations to Burma.
Seng Kakda said that only two companies in the country have licenses from the Cambodian and South Korean governments to employ Cambodia workers: International Manpower Cambodia and NH Manpower Co Ltd.
Cambodia received a quota to export 1,000 workers to South Korea in 2003, he said, adding that for 2004 the quota was raised to 2,000.
Seng Kakda said he had informed Tuol Kok district authorities to intervene.
