By Spy Investigators
Kampala: SpyUganda investigators have established that there are dirty games being played by government officials at the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social development.
Our Spies within the ministry reveal that senior commissioners and heads of departments in the Labour section are running companies that export labour abroad. Now since these government officials, who are operating with conflict of interest, own labour exportation companies, they have since hatched a plot to frustrate new companies that had registered for labour exportation with the ministry from getting licenses using the cover excuse that they’re still streamlining the Industry as they milk the same.
The motive here is that these government officials and their proxies can enjoy the monopoly of running the lucrative labour exportation business with minimal competition. It all started when the ministry issued a directive on Tuesday May 14th, 2019, informing the general public that registration of labour recruitment companies had been suspended until further notice. The directive was issued in a notice that was published in several local dailies, by Permanent Secretary Pius Bigirimana. However, we have learnt that prior to issuing the directive, the Ministry had received applications from over 60 companies that wanted to offer labour recruitment services to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
These companies had fully completed the necessary documentation, secured bank guarantees and gotten clearance from all other concerned authorities. But proprietors of these companies got shocked after being told by Labour Department officials that registration of their companies by the ministry cannot be effected because of the directive that was passed. Efforts by the proprietors to remind the Labour Department officials that the directive was passed long after the companies had completed registration processes landed on deaf ears.So in order to frustrate new companies, the labour department official made registration so difficult by removing the online portal from their website through which applicants were submitting documents. It should be noted that they don’t accept physical documents, but they removed the online portal a month before passing the directive of suspending registration of new companies.  Now the proprietors of these companies are stranded with paperwork and orders from abroad, on top of facing multimillion losses in form of the money they used to process the registration process. This is simply because the labour ministry don’t want new entrants to compete with their companies.
Ministry Officials,Army Generals Own Labour Companies
However, after digging deeper into the matter, our Spies established that there are several officials at the ministry of Gender and Labour and top army officials who own labour exportation companies. For instance, there is a husband in the ministry who owns a company called Platinum Projects, while his wife owns Afrisun Uganda LTD, both labour exportation companies. A top UPDF General owns Able Recruitment Services while his wife owns Six Star International, a senior official’s former driver at the ministry has a labour recruitment company but he was registered and got the license within 2 days.
“Actually,to cut the whole story short,Army officials own about 90% of all Ugandan labour export companies,”our source revealed on phone.
Affected Parties Threaten To Drag Gov’t To Court To Cough Their Money
Many of the proprietors of companies that have since been barred from registration have vowed to drag government, the Attorney General and the Gender ministry to court for sabotage and frustration of youth employment. They also want the Inspector General of Government (IGG) to conduct a forensic audit into the companies that are already registered to establish their directors and shareholders so as to eradicate the conflict of interest created by the ministry officials who own labour exportation companies. The proprietors also argue that denying credible organisations an opportunity to register as labour exporters is likely to increase acts of human trafficking in Uganda, because the frustrated businessmen will end up resorting to underground exportation of labour, yet this has resulted into the suffering of several Ugandans who go to work abroad after being smuggled out of the country.
