Blacklisted recruitment agencies are posing as new enterprises operating other businesses to continue luring Kenyans with bogus overseas jobs.
The rogue agencies are using new ventures as a front to escape scrutiny from regulators and to beat strict laws to curb movement of persons to foreign countries without proper documentation.
On Wednesday, Director General National Employment Authority (NEA) Edith Okoki revealed to a parliamentary committee how despite blacklisting some recruitment agencies from operation, they still find a way of continuing with their business.
Mrs Okoki cited one such agency operating in Uasin Gishu called Royal Capital Placement which was closed after its operations were questioned.
“It’s an agency that we blacklisted, however, there are reports that the office is still open. When we sent our officers there, the lady told them that’s her office and she is not carrying out any recruitment,” Mrs Okoki said.
The National Assembly committee on diaspora affairs and migrant workers heard that such is the trick that many other agencies which have been closed are using to continue operating after closure.
They disguise themselves as doing private businesses in the offices while in the background, they still recruit people for informal jobs abroad.
Mrs Okoki told MPs that it forwards such matters to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for action.
Another trick used by the closed agencies is that they are taking people to foreign countries for education purposes and not jobs but in the real sense they are recruiting for jobs.
Mrs Okoki also decried that migrant workers are also to blame for the predicament they face in foreign countries they use illegal means to get jobs abroad.
It emerged that some of the workers upon realising the stringent measures put in place by the Kenyan authorities, move to neighbouring countries such as Tanzania before exiting to the foreign countries.
The Director General said in such cases, they don’t have the data of such individuals and hence cannot come to their rescue when in distress.
“Some of the distress cases we receive left through neighbouring countries, it is difficult to bring back a Kenyan who is not registered with an agency,” Mrs Okoki said.
She also accused some of the migrant workers of taking advantage of the hospitality of Kenya as they travel mostly to Saudi Arabia as domestic workers but after two weeks they shift to other jobs.
Upon encountering problems in their new jobs, they call in distress that they want to come back to Kenya.
“Even after coming back to Kenya, they will stay for a month and then want to go back again. We are now blacklisting them because you can’t leave Saudi Arabia then after two weeks, you want to go back to the same place,” Mrs Okoki said.
Such persons, she revealed use a different recruitment agency in order to avoid strict scrutiny from the authorities.
In the financial year 2022/2023, the authority facilitated the placement of 123,114 job seekers locally and abroad.
Of the number, 17,318 were recruited locally while 105,796 got jobs abroad in both non-skilled and semi-skilled areas such as domestic workers, cleaners, security in the construction industry, aviation, hospitality, engineering, sales and marketing.
In the year under review, the authority told MPs that it vetted and registered 789 private recruitment agencies involved in registration and placement of job seekers locally and abroad.
Majority of Kenyan recruiting have always raised a red flag over an insurgence of foreign firms operating in the country without proper documentation with majority of them being companies run by individuals from the Arab states.
The committee chairperson Lydia Haika (Taita Taveta) said they have received many distress cases from Kenyans who are suffering in foreign countries.
“We have received many such cases but again when they were going, we did not know, so we have a problem here that we must talk about,” Ms Haika said.
She pointed out that as much as they want Kenyans to get jobs, it has to be done in a proper manner.
“Yes we want them to get jobs wherever they are but we also want them to be comfortable anywhere. It’s not just about the recruitment agencies pocketing their recruitment fee but the safety of our people must also be guaranteed. This is a conversation that we must have,” Ms Haika said.
Mrs Okoki admitted to the committee that there is lack of proper coordination in order to get the number of Kenyans traveling abroad for jobs since the ministry of foreign and diaspora affairs is also recruiting Kenyans for foreign jobs.
“It’s the mandate of the authority to take people out but the ministry of foreign affairs have also been doing the same job. I know there are some serious overlaps. We have raised the issue with our parent ministry and we hope it will be resolved at that level,” Mrs Okoki said.
