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APRIL 23 A contact for a story said: We need to talk this week. The reason, as it turned out, was that he had to leave Singapore because his employment pass had not been renewed. And he is not the only one. Other employment pass holders have also been forced to leave and even some permanent residents (PR) re-entry permits have not been renewed.

While there is plenty of discussion in Singapore about having too many foreigners here, the buzz in the expat community is about how uncertain it is whether they can continue to live here.

Whether the number of rejected applications is actually large or small isnt clear. Regardless of reality, word has gotten around about passes not being renewed and rumours about the reasons are flowing fast. As one blogger wrote: Its pot luck Doesnt seem to be any rhyme nor reason.

The issue affects talented people who are considering whether to move to Singapore too. While people who want to come here for more mundane jobs may have few options, talented individuals have a multitude of choices.

When they hear about employment pass renewal rejections and when they can have greater certainty about a long-term job if they move somewhere else, they may well decide to bypass the island and take their skills elsewhere.

Employers, too, are facing difficulties.

One well-placed industry observer told me that many major companies are concerned about their ability to maintain their skilled expat staff especially when they have not been able to hire and retain local staff with similar skills. Companies in industries like hospitality, for example, have found that staff who have been here for many years are suddenly not being allowed to stay.

The buzz about rejections is compounded by a lack of clarity about which employment passes or PR permits will be renewed.

While salary requirements are online and the Ministry of Manpower even has an online Self-Assessment Tool, some people who seem to meet the criteria have still been turned down. Some people have successfully appealed against rejections, though many of them are not sure why their appeal succeeded.

Lacking clear information, the rumour mill has gone into higher gear.

Here is the original post:
The uneasy expats — Richard Hartung

The Government has warned of a crackdown on expats who are illegally fleecing the UK for benefits, as it struggles to lessen the country's debt burden.

During a visit to a Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) team in Madrid yesterday, the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said that the Government was determined to clamp down on the huge number of benefit cheats who live aboad.

Figures show that expat benefit fraud cost around 43 million last year, with the popular destination of Spain being the main hotspot for such activity.

This money should be going to the people who need it most and not lining the pockets of criminals sunning themselves overseas, said Mr Duncan Smith.

The vast majority of British people overseas are law-abiding, but fraudulently claiming benefits while living abroad is a crime and we are committed to putting a stop to it.

Some benefits, such as child benefit and the state pension, can be legitimately claimed abroad, but many more, including income support, are not considered exportable.

Common benefit scams perpetrated by expats include not declaring that they have moved abroad so that they can continue to pick up certain benefits, hiding assets abroad such as property or savings, or claiming unemployment or sickness benefits while working overseas.

Mr Duncan Smith encouraged law-abiding Britons in Spain, where income support and pension credit claims are most commonly investigated for fraud, to contact the DWP using a special hotline if they suspected someone they knew was committing benefit fraud.

The Spanish hotline is believed to have received over 750 tip-offs since it was set up in 2008, and has led to a similar scheme being established in neighbouring Portugal.

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£43 million given to expat benefit fraudsters

BEIRUT: President Sleiman Wednesday encouraged Lebanese Australians to submit their names to the civil registry in anticipation of the approval of a draft law that would allow Lebanese expatriates to apply for dual citizenship.

In Australia on an official visit, Sleiman said that the draft law, which Cabinet approved late last year, has been submitted to Parliament and will be approved soon.

He spoke at a meeting of the Lebanese community in Sydney.

The law would allow Lebanese expatriates who were born abroad and only hold the citizenship of the countries where they were born to apply for Lebanese citizenship. Calling Lebanese expatriates the oxygen of Lebanon, he said they should have preferential opportunities to invest in Lebanon, and urged the diaspora to not give up Lebanese land, for it is precious. Build your home on it.

Sleiman said diaspora citizenship was important to support Lebanon and reinforce its strength through the expatriates who are spread across the world.

In addition to discussing developments in Syria and the region, Sleiman said that the most important project for Lebanon is to develop a modern electoral law that will represent all Lebanese fully, and will ensure the right of expatriates to vote.

The president also met with Marie Bashir, the governor of New South Wales, who is of Lebanese descent.

Read the original here:
Sleiman urges Lebanese expats to prepare for dual citizenship

Even in Thursday's heavy rain showers, the small town of Villanueva del Trabuco high in the mountains above Malaga looks like a British expat's dream place in the sun: buried in olive groves, dozens of whitewashed houses with almond blossom creeping over stone latticework.

Think again: the five British residents gathered in Villanueva del Trabuco's biggest bar nursing drinks as they eye the teeming rain outside estimate there has been a massive fall in the town's numbers in the last four years, from 200 British households to just 30 in 2012. And it's still dropping.

"There is no end to the thinning-out process," Ronny Clarke, a British retiree living in Villanueva del Trabuco, tells The Independent. "As two of my friends said when they left here for the UK again: the party's over."

By many accounts, a cocktail of plummeting house prices, a remorselessly unfavourable exchange rate and a Spanish economy in ruins has dealt a knock-out blow to the economic welfare of tens of thousands of British pensioners living in Spain.

"Those who could move are already in the UK," Mr Clarke says. But what of those who remain?

"We are trapped," says E W, a British pensioner in her 60s with property on the Costa del Sol, who will not reveal her full name because she does not want her relatives worrying. "Your pension doesn't go as far as it did five years ago and people are already leaving. My plans were to stay here for 10 years, but I sold up everything in the UK, so I can't go back."

Professor Jose Luis Suarez, an expert in financial management from the IESE business school, says "foreigners who wish to sell their home face a problem. House prices are falling, so anybody wanting to sell has to make a large discount".

But after years of saving to move to Spain, what is prodding them to move back? The British retirees cite the exchange rate as one of the biggest issues, harking back to when 1 would get you 1.50 compared with 1.20 or 1.10 now.

That difference is crucial to the quality of life abroad for those reliant on British pensions. And with no property back in the UK, they have no choice but to stick it out. At the same time, the cost of living has soared in Spain. John French, a 78-year-old who proudly recalls that he was one of the first Britons to set up a home in Fuente de Piedra further inland, says that his wife came out of the bank "laughing her head off" recently because the exchange rate had improved to 1.22 for the first time in months. But, he adds gloomily, corned beef prices in his local Iceland have gone through the roof.

Estimating exactly how many British pensioners are in stuck in a cleft stick property-wise in Spain is difficult given that many UK expats do not notify authorities when heading south. The UK's Office for National Statistics notes that since 2008, when Spain's economic crisis began, British emigration figures have been dropping.

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'Any expats who could move back to the UK already have. The rest of us are trapped'

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