Labour Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua announced that the government will launch a crackdown on illegal job recruiting agents exploiting Kenyans who turned up for the Qatar jobs recruitment exercise at Kabete and Kenyatta International Conference Centre(KICC). This initiative follows an agreement with the Qatari Government to send over 8,000 Kenyans to work in the country.

Speaking on Citizen TV on Sunday evening, Mutua revealed that many agencies had tried to to scam unsuspecting Kenyans during the KICC recruitment exercise for Qatar jobs, even though the process was entirely government-led.

“On the first day at KICC, we had agents who are not part of the game trying to charge people saying, ‘Bring Ksh100,000, bring your passport I will take you through.’ There was a lot of con. You know we discovered a vehicle with about 40 passports, somebody already collecting people’s passports so that you can give money,” he stated.

According to the CS, the government was embarking on a plan to combat the dubious agencies who have been drafting schemes to scam unsuspecting Kenyans.

Mutua added that the government put in place structures to ensure that only authentic recruitment agencies would be allowed to recruit alongside the government. The government took over the recruitment process after numerous complaints.

“They are looking at this as an opportunity to eat and I want to tell the agencies that in the government of William Ruto, as long as Alfred Mutua is the CS, you are not going to con our people and get our people to kill themselves because of stealing from them,’’ Mutua noted.

However, the CS added that some of the recruitment agencies were actually good and had in the past demonstrated commitment towards protecting and advancing safe labour practices.

‘’We are going to clean up this system, so I am going to go regional. Not everyone can come to Nairobi. But a lot of the agencies are very good,’’ he added.

Meanwhile, the CS revealed that the government was working on mechanisms to see how to incorporate some of the agencies that had shown good records with the government into the recruitment process.

Mutua added that the government would announce an additional recruitment drive that will be spread across the country to help those in far-flung areas to equally benefit from the Qatar jobs.

This comes as the government prepares to recruit an additional 5,000 Kenyans for the Qatar jobs starting in November and December.

On Sunday, Mutua announced that similar recruitment exercises would be expanded to other regions of the country, and the government will involve reputable agencies to assist in the recruitment process.

‘’We are going to tell them to bring your letters, bring your jobs that you have been given from overseas, let’s work together, let’s go across the country in the month of November,’’ he observed.

 “We are committed to pushing for more job openings internationally and exploring ways to decentralize the hiring process to make it accessible across Kenya,” he added.