By Sarah Achen Kibisi.
In a bid to improve the welfare of workers, a section of companies that recruit for labour export have formed a new association.
External Labour Agencies of Uganda (ELAU) parted ways with Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA).
Over 70 companies have joined ELAU on realizing that UAERA has fell short on its mandate. The companies under ELAU fault UAERA for alleged corruption and abuse of office, mismanagement of association funds, human trafficking allegations against members and claim officer bearers have a criminal record.
The members promised to deal with corruption, mismanagement of funds and improve the welfare of workers. These members also pledged to front welfare issues of workers and ensure that they work in countries where there are labourers from Uganda to help the workers according to Nadya Nyakwera member and Milton Omurwo interim chairman.
Our reasons for breaking away are based on the allegations. The association leadership lost grip of traits of leaders and focused of satisfying themselves as individuals at the expense of the members.
They engaged in extortion of funds and securing their positions to benefit themselves and establishing cartels to foster their objects and torment those who criticize their behaviors. Examples are listed below; extorting members by subjecting them to pay exorbitant fees on yellow fever clearances.
Mismanagement of association’s funds
UAERA activities are usually funded by member’s money. This money is acquired from membership fees, subscription, donations and budget support from members and other sources.
It’s meant for supporting the secretariat and paying for running expenses such as rent, salaries and travel costs etc.
Poor management practices resulted in depletion of member’s funds, channeling funds away from planned activities and operating budgets that were approved by members.
Human trafficking allegations against members
The management after successfully imposing the Shs 20,000 on every Ugandan engaged in yet another risk business of trafficking. They wanted to introduce another desk at the International airport that would require every traveller to pay 30 dollars for monitoring.
Denial of freedom of expression
Article 2 a (1) of the constitution guarantees freedom of expression however the leadership of UAERA does not allow its members to freely express themselves whereby the vice Mr Ibrahim Bogere wrote to members on 17th January 2023 instructing them to desist from any comments about the yellow fever saga against the chairman and secretary general and those who made an attempt were immediately ejected from UAERA official platform an act that contravenes the provisions of freedom of expression.
Lack of corporate governance
An association like UAERA is required to exhibit high moral aspects of corporate governance and implement all the tents with a good board. This would account for transparency, independence, accountability and also pay attention to risk aversion in the company. Instead of attending to the day’s task, the board has damaged the association internally and potentially caused external negative publicity, failure to engage and manage stakeholders.
The UAERA leadership failed to build good relationships and partnerships with its stakeholders in view of keeping the industry attractive. Most stakeholders that have power and interest in this sector have not keenly managed and hence there’s a lot of backlashes that have continued to issue due to the board’s unseriouness■
