The government of Uganda has announced that legal companies dealing in exporting of labour should resume business with immediate effect.
The line Minister Hon Frank Tumwebaze broke the news on Tuesday on Twitter.
“This is to inform all licensed companies involved in the sourcing of external employment for Ugandan migrant workers, that following the relaxing of a number of COVID-19 lock down measures by Ministry of Health and resumption of air travel, Ministry of Gender will be lifting the ban,” he tweeted.
Tumwebaze added that the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Gender Aggrey Kibenge will expound more in accordance with the existing mandatory SOPs the labour companies must adhere to for all travelers.
Tumwebaze thanked the stakeholders from Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA for their patience.
Last month, the UAERA an umbrella that bring together all labour externalization firms in Uganda announced the closure of business with immediate effect.
UAERA’s Chairman Baker Akantambira said most of the licensed recruitment companies had closed shop, suspended operations due to rent, salary arrears and other operating costs in their places of operations after they spent the bigger part of the year without working and this directly affected over 4,000 direct employees of these recruitment companies and their dependents.
There is also a growing concern within the sector that the prolonged closure of legal labour migration is fueling an increase in Human Trafficking as has been witnessed since the airport was opened on 1st October 2020.
Therefore the suspension of externalization of labour was inevitable given the prevailing conditions [globally], the current move by the Ministry to unilaterally undertake measures directly affecting the labour companies is disturbing.
The closure had sparked off protests from jobless Ugandans especially women who stormed the Ministry of Gender on Monday and handed in a petition wondering why government continued to give a blind eye to particular few companies that remained operational which promotes human trafficking.
