Dozens of recruitment agency officials staged a protest this morning outside a Saudi Embassy-affiliated Skills Verification Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.

The protesters argued that the centre had been established primarily to collect US$100 from every Nepali citizen seeking employment in Saudi Arabia, under the pretext of conducting a skills assessment.

They stressed that their objection was not to the testing process itself, but rather to what they described as an assessment system that is neither rigorous nor reliable, claiming that it serves mainly as a mechanism for collecting money from low-income Nepali job seekers.

Nepali citizens also accused the Saudi Embassy of misleading prospective workers through advertising campaigns encouraging them to attend the centre and complete the skills test.

According to the complaints, the promotional materials create the impression that passing the assessment guarantees an opportunity to work in Saudi Arabia, a claim that critics describe as deceptive and misleading.