Crack down on fake recruitment agencies

There are just too many scams through which gullible Kenyans have lost a lot of their hard-earned money. The victims include those seeking greener pastures overseas and, of course, the many who are easily preyed on for their own greed. Stories of people being swindled out of their money by sweet-talking tricksters are legion but the racket continues.

The promise of easy money, though it is non-existent, makes many people salivate and borrow or withdraw their hard-earned savings and surrender the sum to the con artists and then sit back expecting returns that will never come. There have been painful stories of people who have sold their farms to raise money to pay crooks promising jobs abroad and who vanish as soon as they receive the cash.

Detectives are now on the trail of a Nairobi pastor in a Sh600 million jobs scam that has left in its wake hundreds of traumatised debt-ridden individuals and families. More than 4,000 jobseekers paid fees ranging from Sh100,000 to Sh140,000 to a firm linked to the man of the cloth and have lost it all.

Many Kenyans are always salivating for jobs overseas. Some have paid recruiting agencies huge sums of money for non-existent jobs in the Middle East and Europe. The families of students eyeing scholarships abroad have also been hit. The case of Uasin Gishu County’s dirt-poor parents who scrounged and borrowed to pay for scholarships in Europe that they never got is still fresh in many people’s minds.

This pastor on the run came much later, promising desperate young people jobs in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. It is commendable, however, that investigators have arrested some of his fellow directors and senior staff in the fake recruitment firm, who are now in custody as the search for the key suspect continues.

Although employment agencies are registered under the National Employment Bureau, there seems to be no proper regulation. There is a need to tighten controls so that somebody does not just wake up one day and start collecting applications and fees for non-existent jobs. This calls for decisive action by the authorities and vigilance by the people.