Labour Cabinet Secretary, Alfred Mutua has named recruitment agencies flagged by Kenyans and directed them to appear before the Directorate of Criminal Investigations DCI on Monday, July 21.
In a statement shared on social media, Mutua said his ministry has received 84 complaints from Kenyans from across 15 countries linked to the listed agencies and individuals.
These complaints allege that unsuspecting Kenyans have lost a total of KSh 17.3 million to individuals and entities falsely purporting to offer overseas job opportunities.
He warned that failure to comply would result in legal action, including arrest, prosecution, and possible deregistration.
“If you’re posing as a travel or recruitment agency and engaging in job placement without proper registration or licenses, we will come after you. You risk being taken on a long-term holiday to prison,” Mutua said.
“Kenyans deserve safe, transparent, and dignified access to job opportunities abroad. We will not relent until every rogue agent is held accountable.”
The CS said these are part of the efforts by the government to crack down on rogue agents who exploit Kenyans by promising them non-existent overseas jobs.
Furthermore, the CS has condemned some of the agencies he says have been reported that they unlawfully withhold passports for over a year effectively denying them both opportunity and dignity.
Upon preliminary analysis, Mutua said it is clear that these complaints are largely against companies and individuals who are: Unlicensed, unregistered, deregistered, non-compliant with labour migration regulations and not-tax compliant.
”In other words, these are illegal entities masquerading as legitimate labour recruiters.” he stated.
At the same time, he has clarified that travel agencies are not licensed to conduct labour recruitment. It is illegal for them to do so without proper accreditation from the Ministry of Labour through the National Employment Authority (NEA). This is after investigations revealed that most of the companies complained about majority are travel agencies.
Mutua appealed to the public to continue reporting rogue agents to the relevant authorities.
“We call upon members of the public who know the listed individuals or companies to immediately notify them of this summons. Whistleblowers and victims are further encouraged to continue reporting to the Multi-Agency Response Team at NSSF,” he noted.
The development comes two days after the ministry established a Multi-Agency Taskforce to investigate and prosecute these fraudulent actors swiftly and thoroughly.
