By Winnie Cherop
Hundreds of locals who were promised to travel to Qatar for contract jobs during the upcoming world cup on Monday stormed an Eldoret recruitment agency office over fears they had been conned.
The locals stormed the First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy offices demanding explanations as to why they are yet to travel to Qatar as promised.
Some of those that spoke to Uasin Gishu News claimed they were to be deployed for a contract of between five months to two years.
They did their interviews as early as March 2022.
“I applied for a job vacancy in Qatar through this agency and was given a successful interview. The deployment was to take place in June but until now it’s past 3 months now and the agency has not responded,” said Praise Jemitei, one of those promised the jobs.
“The job I applied for was to last for five months but for now I’m no longer interested. I want the money back as I had borrowed from someone to refund in the first month of payroll. My children are at home and I need to pay the school fees,” she added.
Operations at the travel agency were disrupted for almost the whole day as the locals sought an audience with the director.
The locals had turned up to the First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy offices demanding answers after reports emerged on various social media pages claiming the agency was conning unsuspecting members of the public with a promise to secure them jobs in Qatar.
Demanding for refund
They had paid between Ksh40,000 and Ksh60,000 for the jobs.
However, each of those that were complaining had different receipts.
“These people have our passports and we have realized that these receipt don’t even have a stamp or their name on them. I helped my late friend’s son to apply for the job in May this year and we secured a cleaner’s job,” noted Edwin Lagat.
Lagat notes they were to travel in July after paying Ksh50,000 but they had not received any further communications to date.
He was demanding that the money be refunded after the travel agency failed to deliver on its promise.
“We came back claiming for our money but instead they want to refund us Ksh25,000 only,” he said.
“I have three children and I paid Ksh80,000 for them and Ksh3,500 for passports for each child. After medical, they accepted the two and claimed the other child had issues with his chest, they took Ksh10,000 for medical and even after asking them to refund at least half of the money but the response was that once applications are done there is no refunding,” noted Elizabeth Melly.
There were attempts by First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy director Judy Chepchirchir to explain the situation to the complainants but she failed to convince them.
Delays in VISA processing
The agency has on September 10, 2022, issued a statement on the social media platforms accusing their competitors of spreading malicious information about them.
It noted that it was a legally registred recruitment agency regulated by the government.
However, it admitted that there has been a delay in VISA prcessing for those travellng to Qatar due to high number of people seeking the documents.
“The challenge we are experiencing as an Agency is delays of visa processing due to influx of persons applying for Fifa World Cup in Qatar 2022,” said the First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy in a post on ther Facebook page.
“Additionally, what is causing delays is also due to paper work for all our applicants. Cvs, Recommendations Letters, Photos, Covid Certificates, Police Clearance, Yellow Fever, among others which majority of the applicants didn’t have and some takes time to get,” the agency added.
Further, it appealed to all the applicants to be patient and asked them to treat social media posts suggesting that hey had been conned “as pure propaganda being pushed my our competitors”.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held from November 20th 2022, to December 18, 2022.
Mimi ni mmoja watakosea Sana if I fail to flight