Pallisa: Authorities suspend labor export firm

By Lawrence Okwakol

Pallisa district authorities have suspended the operations of Heri ni Africa recruitment agency, a labor export company.

George Onyait, the Pallisa district senior labour officer said Alliamo’s recruitment agency is not registered and that it instead gets clients and sells them to Jerusalem international recruitment agency at one million each.

“The problem is most people desperately want to go out and bother coming to our office, office of the RDC and DISO which have sieved agencies registered with the ministry of gender, labour and social development,” Onyait said.

Magidu Dhikusoka, the Pallisa resident district commissioner tasked LCs to ask the recruitment agents who come to their localities for registration certificates.

Dhikusoka said the challenge people sneak to get recruited in other places and only inform local authorities when people are exposed to hardships or even death.

This resolution of having Alliamo arrested was reached at in an engagement meeting of stakeholders at Laquinta hotel in Pallisa town on Tuesday. The meeting was organized by Government and accountability of inter district NGOs (GAIN Uganda).

Samson Emasit, the program officer of GAIN Uganda said they engaged local leadership in Pallisa under the programme of rural migration agenda and labour export following the deaths of two girls in Saudi Arabia in the last two months.

Jackson Okiring, a senior lecturer at Busitema University sourced as a subject specialist said according to available records in the ministry of gender labour and social development, Uganda has so far exported 622,000 from 2019 to date.

Okiring said the report from ministry of gender labour and social indicated that 126,800 are in Saudi Arabia alone.

John Michael Okwalinga, the Pallisa senior probation officer said the parents of those who have left for kyeyo in the middle east are suffering with grandchildren as their mothers left.

Okwalinga said most the girls who have left were defiled and pushed to marriage. However, when life hardened, they resort to going abroad.

Victor Okwajja, the Kamuge sub county chairperson said recruitment procedure needs to be changed. He suggests strengthening the issue of LCs recommendation because ”currently national identity cards and consent of parents is mainly taken to account.”

Okwajja challenged GAIN Uganda to engage high-profile policy makers on this matter.

However, Esther Akello, a resident of Kaboloi village in Pallisa sub county said regardless of hardships their relatives undergo in middle east, most families have benefited in structural development and payment of fees.