The Sunday Mail
Emmanuel Kafe
A well-knit syndicate of criminals has invaded the job market.
Unscrupulous illegal employment agencies mushrooming in Harare have been accused of cashing in on desperate job seekers.
Although this is not new, investigations by The Sunday Mail showed that this practice had now become endemic.
Some have even started company websites outside the country to lure and defraud desperate job seekers as well as students looking for scholarships.
Newspapers and social media are always flooded with adverts of employment opportunities placed by agencies seeking to “help” job hunters.
The adverts and flyers seem authentic, with the advertisers claiming to offer on-the-job training. Mostly, they promise to secure jobs, but fail to deliver after having milked the clients of their hard-earned money.
The daring ones have cast their nets wider, placing billboards in the city, at bus termini and street corners in the high density suburbs.
This publication has established that aspiring temporary and nursery school teachers, security guards, merchandisers and till operators are the main groups targeted by the agencies. The applicants are required to pay a training fee, which earns them a theoretical course and a period of attachment. They are then required to pay another fee to receive the certificates that later prove to be just worthless pieces of paper.
On the internet, the illegal agencies have websites where they promise to secure either scholarships or jobs for their clients in developed countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Cyprus.
A number of victims of this elaborate scam recently opened up to The Sunday Mail Society. They explained how they were let down by some of these employment agencies.
Job-seekers and students are asked to pay processing fees or bribes to get either scholarships or jobs locally or abroad.
A recent graduate from a local university was made to cough up a significant amount of money as registration fee, but never got a job.
Talent Makwinja was asked by an employment agency to pay $100 as processing fee.
“I paid the whole amount to the agency,” he said.
He added that there was nothing suspicious about the entire process. The job he was eyeing was listed on two reputable websites while the employment agency operated from a decent office in Harare’s Central Business District.
Add to that, a lot of people kept on coming for the organisation’s ‘services’.
“I was told to keep checking with them until they got the job for me,” he said.
But, after continued checks with the agency, Makwinja discovered one day that the agency had vacated the premises. He never heard from them again.
There are also reports of a number of job seekers, who were referred to different companies by the said agency, only to find out later that there was no such arrangement between the agency and the respective companies.
Several other desperate job seekers have found themselves in this predicament.
Miriam Nhere, who wanted to try her luck in studying abroad through a scholarship, was left in a more desperate situation.
An agent got away with her US$75 “processing fee”. The man had made her believe that he was a country representative for Parul University of India.
“He said the university was offering scholarships for less privileged people but he needed money to process the papers,” she said.
“After weeks of being coached on what needed to be done, the man just went quiet. l never heard from him again.”
Nhere urged students who are applying for scholarships to be more cautions, lest they lose their money to bogus agencies around the city.
The more daring illegal agencies invite their clients to hotels or town offices of “their companies” for interviews. This make the whole process seem more real.
After the interviews, clients looking for jobs or scholarships are asked to pay the processing fees.
The more sophisticated ones use mainstream media to advertise their ‘opportunities’. Some of them even have the temerity to purport to be from certain established companies. A number of companies are now putting out adverts advising people of the existence of these fraudsters.
Career coaches have warned that most applications that require people to pay processing fees are fake.
Dr Abel Chinouta, a multi-skilled professional life and business coach, said if one succeeds with these bogus job and scholarship agencies, it could be a gateway to undercover trafficking.
“It is not easy to get a job these days, even abroad, people should just be cautious and patient,” said Dr Chinouta.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, thousands of people are trafficked, both internally and outside the country, on false promises of jobs abroad.
A United Nations Global Report on Trafficking indicated that human trafficking often occurs from less developed countries, where victims are promised lucrative jobs.
Some members of the public have previously appealed to relevant authorities to root out bogus employment agencies operating all over the country.
