Three labour export firms lose licences

Kampala. The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development has cancelled licences of three international labour recruitment agencies and suspended seven others for allegedly flouting the guidelines.

The ministry on Monday issued a press statement warning the general public not to transact with the affected companies.
Mr Laurence Egulu, the Commissioner for Employment Services, told Daily Monitor yesterday that those whose licences were terminated were fleecing Ugandans and not taking them for jobs abroad.

Fraud allegations
“The first three companies on our statement have been cheating Ugandans who are desperately looking for jobs. We could not take this anymore, so we cancelled their licences,” Mr Egulu said.

For those whose licences have been suspended, Mr Egulu said they had forged bank guarantee certificates, which he said amounts to fraud. He said each company being licensed by the ministry is mandated to furnish the ministry with a bank guarantee of Shs50 million, which can be used to settle any financial issues with clients.

“They had given us bank guarantees showing that they had secured Shs50m each but we later found out that they were fake. This is when we wanted to get money from some of those company’s guarantees and found nothing. And the banks came out to deny those documents,” Mr Egulu added.

The commissioner also revealed that on top of uttering false bank guarantee documents, Karibun International Limited has also cheated job seeking Ugandans of more than Shs200m and never secured for them jobs abroad.
He said in the wake of these frauds and forgeries, the ministry has decided to embark on thorough investigations into the conduct of all the 109 licensed agencies.

Suspended firm speaks out
Mr Derrick Orone, the managing director of Rokas Recruitment Services Limited, confirmed that his company’s licence has been suspended but insisted the bank guarantee submitted to the ministry is genuine.
“I have a genuine bank guarantee from Stanbic Bank but I will comply with the said investigations,” Mr Orone said.

Affected companies

Terminated. Ssuman Services Limited, Fountain Security Services, and Abroad Placement Ltd.
Suspended. Karibun International Limited, Professional Recruitment Services, Swift International Recruiters Limited, Fresh Mind International Limited, Elite Placements Consulting Limited, Rokas Recruitment Services Limited, and Labour Frontiers International Limited.

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