Times of Oman gets it wrong (again)

Well this week is flying by. I guess it was bound to happen - first week back to work after the Eid break, with piles and piles of paperwork to plough through, so I've been a lazy blogger. While having a coffee break in the office on Sunday, I read with much bemusement the front page cover story on the Times of Oman (the story is currently here, but I wouldn't be surprised if the story suddenly gets pulled).

In the ToO article, the journo, Rahul Das, gets it totally wrong, boldly proclaiming on the Sultanates oldest and most established English language newspaper front page (above the fold) that if you want to keep owning your business, you can't work for anyone else. Which is clearly not true, and I'm sure many of you with brains would have clocked that pretty quickly. As it happens I tweeted later in the day on Sunday that I thought this article was wrong, and apparently was late to the party led by local super-blogger, Riyadh "Blue-Chi" Al Balushi who quite correctly pointed out that Mr Das was barking up the wrong tree with his article.

You see, the recent Ministry of Manpower announcement made did indeed require owners of specific businesses to make it their sole form of employment, and thus to leave other jobs, eventually. The key word there is specific, as opposed to, you know, all (businesses).

However, thankfully today, the bright boys and girls down at Muscat Daily got it right, presumably after doing some actual, you know, investigation into the story, rather than just spouting out some sensationalist headlines. To quote the Muscat Daily's Shaddad al Musalmy:

"Ministerial Decision 420/2012 issued on July 22, 2012, owners of manpower agencies have to run the agencies themselves without handing them over to an expatriate.

Those who own manpower agencies cannot work in either a government department or in the private sector. This comes into force from May 1, 2014".

So, not quite what the ToO would have you believe then. Oops. I wonder if the ToO will print a retraction? I'm guessing not. heh. First class journalism at work again! To be fair to the ToO journalist, it's gotta suck, because we all make mistakes from time to time and I'm certainly no exception to that rule!

More tomorrow.

le fin.