Three arrested for operating unlicensed labor recruitment agency

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Three people from Nansana municipality, Wakiso district are in trouble for operating an illegal labor recruitment agency. The trio was picked up in a joint operation by officers from the Criminal Investigations Directorate-CID.

Agnes Igoye, the Senior Coordinator of Anti Human trafficking in the Directorate of Immigration and Citizens Control identifies the suspects as Geoffrey Kabagambe, Paul Kagame, and Amos Shakespeare. They are the directors of Strategic partners agency limited, which is found in Nansana municipality, Wakiso district.

Security picked up the suspects on a tip-off following numerous complaints from some of the people they have been recruiting from different parts of the country. Preliminary findings show that Strategic partners agency limited was registered as a tour and travel company. During the search, police recovered 34 passports, 37 personal files, photographs of recruits, Interpol letters, and t-shirts of the company.

“They have acknowledged their activities. They have been sending their people abroad through another recruitment agency. But the law is clear this is illegal if you use a third party in exporting labor immigrants and then they are discovered. You are also responsible for everything,” Igoye said.

She advises Ugandans planning to go abroad to always check with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development on licensed companies before falling into traps of fraudsters and human traffickers.

According to laws, anyone found operating a labor exporting company without a license faces five-year imprisonment or a fine of 1000 currency points. Each currency point is equivalent to Shillings 20,000.

In June this year, the government suspended eight external labor recruitment agencies over forgeries and other abuses such as trafficking, extortion, and forged documents.

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