The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development has cleared external labour companies to resume recruiting migrant workers who want to work from Middle East.
The Ministry said apart from domestic helpers, other categories of of workers should be cleared to work from the transcontinental region.
“You will recall that following the presidential directive of 18 March 2020 due to the outbreak of Covid-19 global pandemic, I suspended the externalisation of labour on 20 March 2020. In this regard, the Ministry stopped clearing Ugandans going abroad for work. With the resumption of international passenger flights in most countries and the opening of Entebbe International Airport on 1 October 2020, the Ministry continues to receive requests for clearance from recruitment companies and individual migrant workers intending to take up employment abroad,” The Minister of labour Frank Tumwebaze told Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng in a 7 October letter.
“We have noted that the externalization of domestic workers to the Middle East countries has been fraught with a number of challenges including the fact that a number of them contracted Covid-19 and had to be repatriated , In this regard , the externalisation of domestic workers should continue to be on hold as we work out additional (Standard Operating Procedures) SOPs in Uganda, given their unique pre-departure orientation and training , accommodation and medical requirements.
“It is our considered view that for now , clearance of other categories of migrant workers , other than domestic workers should resume. This should be subject to fulfillment of Covid-19 SOPs put in place by government of Uganda and other authorities in the respective destination countries,” Tumwebaze noted.
The development comes hot on the heels of External Labour Recruitment Companies’ decision to officially close business in Uganda.
Last Friday, through their association body of Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA), the companies accused some officials at the Ministry of labour of promoting black market for labour export thus pushing them out of work.
They said that that while government officially suspended labour export due to Covid-19, some unscrupulous individuals in the industry are paying some officials in the ministry to traffic people out of the country.
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