By Heshan De Silva The construction industry has charged that there are foreign workers who have been brought to Sri Lanka exclusively for certain construction projects but are engaging in other projects in contravention of their work visas. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Chamber of Construction Industry (CCI) Sri Lanka President Eng. Maj. Ranjith Gunathilleke said there are foreign employees in the construction field who are engaged in multiple construction projects although their visas specify that they are in Sri Lanka to work on a single project. A majority of the large-scale construction projects in Colombo and in other areas are developed by foreign companies who bring down foreign workers for these projects. “There are foreign contractors, sub-contractors and foreign labourers who are in Sri Lanka. They are working for other construction companies, which is not permitted. I think that is something uncontrollable, but we have to find ways to control it,” said Gunathilleke. He stated that Immigration and Emigration Department (IED) Controller General Nihal Ranasinghe had mentioned that there are around 100 foreign employees who have officially been given work permits to engage in construction projects up to now. “But what I understand is still the numbers are two to three times higher than the official figures that Ranasinghe mentioned.” Addressing a forum on the importation of foreign labour recently, Ranasinghe said that as of the end of last month IED has only approved 23,594 active resident visas in the employment sector which includes 84 for the construction industry and several other visas for Board of Investment projects and the private sector. At the same meeting, Ranasinghe dismissed the allegations that there were many illegal workers from China, India, and Bangladesh, and assured that less than 30,000 work visas had been granted as of 30 September. When contacted about the latest allegations made by Gunathilleke, Ranasinghe told The Sunday Morning Business, that they have taken action against all the reported cases regarding foreign contractors and labourers engaging in other projects that are not permitted according to the existing immigration law procedure. “There could be unreported cases, but reported cases have been dealt according to the law.” According to Ranasinghe, IED has an investigation branch to undertake complaints. Currently, there are officers deployed to investigate illegal foreign employees. “We have been working on upgrading the existing law from 2015. It is now in the hands of the Legal Draftsman. We hope that it will soon be sent to the Attorney General and thereafter, for us to put it to Parliament.” However, Gunatilleke said earlier that even though legal measures have been carried out, there are foreign employees who are still occupied in other construction projects. “We face this situation because of the inefficiency of the IED inspectors. They know how many people came for what visas, where they are working, so they have to check whether the foreign workers are employed under the exact company they were permitted to work for; but I have not seen them checking anywhere,” said Gunatilleke. He also highlighted a labour shortage in the construction field while stating that recruiting foreign employees would be a good solution as seen in other countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, India, and in the Middle East. However, he said that, as foreign construction labour charges are higher, the local labour chargers increase as a result. “Foreign workers are expensive, so on par with them the local salary goes up,” adding that the result of this was the construction costs rising.