Senators want firm in foreign jobs scandal blacklisted
By Rawlings, October 25, 2023
A Senate committee wants First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy Agency blacklisted from operating for defrauding youths of millions of shillings in an overseas jobs deal that never was.
This even as the Senate Labour Committee recommended that former Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago (now Senator) and Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui be probed on their involvement in the fraud.
The committee chaired by West Pokot Senator Julius Murgor also wants the firm that collected cash from youths in exchange for jobs abroad, blacklisted for at least five years from operating in the country.
In a report tabled at the Senate, the committee recommends that the Ministry of Labour and the National Employment Authority (NEA) should also issue a public notice in the dailies directing First Choice to cease its operation with immediate effect.
The committee also wants the board of the National Employment Authority (NEA) disbanded for failing to reign in rogue recruitment agencies to protect the public.
“Despite the existence of legal framework to regulate and manage the foreign recruitment sub-sector and the existence of the NEA, rogue agencies continue to take advantage of gaps to the detriment of potential job seekers,” the report reads.
The report states that Mandago, Chelugui, David Langat and some top business people attended the launch of the overseas job programme by First Choice Teachers Advisory Centre (TAC) in Eldoret, in what gave the public the confidence to put their money in the program.
“This scenario encouraged many parents and candidates to consider the program and invest their resources, including borrowing and selling property towards this cause,” the report states.
The Labour Committee avers that the programme was designed to swindle desperate job seekers as firm operated in total disregards of the laws.