Wednesday 18 / September / 2024
Muscat: The General Federation of Oman Workers(GFOW) appreciated the issuance of the Social Protection Law, which reflects the interest of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, may God protect and preserve him, in his citizens in general and workers in the private sector in particular, through the approval of an integrated system targeting different groups and stages of life.
Nabhan bin Ahmed Al-Batashi, Chairman of the Council of GFOW, said that the issuance of the Social Protection Law comes at an important stage in the life of the renewed renaissance, in which the well-being of the Omani person has set its goal that it seeks to achieve. In line with the directives of "Oman's Vision 2040", which emphasized among its priorities the importance of achieving well-being and social care, and in accordance with the relevant international agreements that the Sultanate of Oman has acceded to or ratified, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and international agreements related to social security and protection. The social commitment to which the Sultanate is committed and the countries that have ratified the constitution of the International Labour Organisation.
He indicated that the Social Protection Law will constitute a qualitative leap at the level of legislation, address many gaps in retirement laws and the previous social security system, and reduce the differences in benefits between the public and private sectors, thus stimulating the demand for job seekers to join the labor market in line with the "Oman Vision 2040", which emphasised the importance of creating an attractive labour market for competencies, and keeping pace with demographic, economic, knowledge and technical changes.
Nabhan bin Ahmed Al-Batashi, Chairman of GFOW, indicated that the Social Protection Law crystallised for retirement programmes and the previous social security system and its need for development, including the percentage of error in targeting the beneficiaries because of the design based on the case study, and the existence of categories that are not covered, in addition to the lack of integration between retirement programmes, which created some problems, such as the inability to combine service periods between systems and sectors, as well as the lack of integration between retirement systems and other programmes.
