Ugandan businessmen are counting losses after Qatar government issued a notice terminating all contracts with labour firms after Ministry of Gender and Labour failed to harmonize its position with the companies on payment of 30 dollars on every vacancy on the job order.
The $30 is paid directly to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
This investigative website has established that the Ministry of Labour has over the years been introducing unstructured fees particularly to labour companies.
For example, the fees in question are the 30 dollars charged on every non- domestic immigrant worker.
However, this has resulted into reduction in demand by the foreign recruitment companies.
After expressing discontent for a long time, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Gender Aggrey Kibenge in July wrote to three embassies of Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia proposing to waive the $30 job fee on every category.
“As you are aware, the Ministry passed The Employment (Recruitment of Ugandan Migrant Workers) Regulations, 2021 in August 2021. The Regulations, among others introduced payment of 30 US Dollars by foreign recruitment agencies for every vacancy on a job order,” Kibenge’s letter reads in parts.
He added that however, in the course of implementation of the above Regulations, we have realized that the demand for non-domestic work job categories has gone down because the foreign recruitment agencies are not willing to pay the 30 US Dollars per vacancy.
“Consequently, to avoid further loss of employment opportunities abroad, the Ministry intends to amend The Employment (Recruitment of Ugandan Migrant Workers) Regulations, 2021 and waive the requirement of paying 30 US Dollars by foreign recruitment agencies for every vacancy on a job order of non-domestic work. It is proposed that the foreign recruitment agencies, instead pay a one-off attestation fee of 300 US Dollars per job order for the non-domestic work category.
The purpose of this letter therefore, is to seek your opinion on the proposed amendment by July 2022.,” he concludes.
What has however, frustrated the business community is that whereas the 30 dollar fees was scrapped off, the ministry refused to waive the same amount of the job vacancy for security guards who are massively needed in Qatar as the country prepares for a mega global event- The World Cup.
“Because Gender Ministry has frustrated the companies, they have failed to deliver the security guards as required by the foreign recruitment firms. And therefore Qatar government has decided to cancel the contracts with all Ugandan labour firms,” said a source at the Ministry of Labour.
“This s to informed you that the Interview schedule in your Country for recruiting the Security Personnel is already cancelled due to MOI Qatar released the information that they will not issue Visa to Uganda Nationality for FIFA Cup,” reads a communication from Qatar recruitment firm.
Baker Akantambira, the Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA) chairman when contacted said, “it is true we are frustrated and counting losses.”
“We engaged the Minister Betty Amongi and she promised us she would scrap off this fee. And we thought it would be like tomorrow. But it has now taken us time which has resulted into cancellation of our contracts. And we have lost out to other countries,” Baker said.
Minister Amongi couldn’t be reached for a comment.