Matiangi’s move against work permits racket OK but …

The Ministry of the Interior and Coordination of National Government launched a Work Permit Verification program on May 21 that will last until July 21. The purposes of the exercise are to introduce a new electronic work permit system and to cull out people that have irregular work permits.

Now I am a supporter of digitalising as much as we can. It makes it easier for the Government and easier for people. But frankly, this is a poorly conceived and incompetently executed plan.

First, there are something like 130,000 expats with work permits. The government thinks there a lots of illegals working. I bet that at most they will catch 25 to 30 folks in this exercise. Think about it, they are wasting 130,000 peoples time (about 130,000 work days – that is 600 person years of effort) to catch 25 to 30 folks. Not a very good investment, unless you are the government that isn’t really investing much at all.

So yes there are 25 to30 foreigners that are taking jobs that Kenyans could do but that won’t make much of a dent in the unemployment in Kenya. In fact even if all 130,000 work permit holders went home and relinquished their jobs to Kenyans it would be a mere drop in the ocean in terms of employment in Kenya.

What the Government could have done was to simply implement this on the renewal of the current work permits and save everyone a lot of time.

I have also read the Government making a case that some of these illegal immigrants are responsible to terror attacks.

The truth, of course, is that 90 per cent of the terror attacks are perpetrated by Kenyans. And do you really think an illegal immigrant who is a terrorist would take the time and effort to get a fake work permit? What were they thinking!

But if the Government thinks it needs to do it right now (which I don’t think they need to do) then organise it properly. Don’t have one poor clerk trying to handle 200 to 300 people per day. And have the reception clerks in order of use.

When I was there you went to the third clerk to get cleared, then to the 1^st clerk to get recorded – the 2^nd clerk just sat there doing nothing. And have someone check that people have the right documents. I had two people in front of me that obviously had not read the instructions. One came with a photo copy of his work permit and the other couldn’t find the payment receipt for the work permit. Both of these folks took up about 15 min of the clerk’s time with one going home very disappointed after wasting hours of his time.

It took me five hours of wasted time that in the end will not accomplish anything that couldn’t have been done as part of the normal work permit renewal process.

The process itself is not terribly complicated. First, they verify your key documents. What you need is

Work permit (the original not a photocopy)
Your passport with the re-entry permit stamped in it
Your PIN number (a photo copy is OK)
The receipt showing you paid for the permit

After they do that verification you then go through another line up where your picture is taken, your fingerprints recorded (luckily they use the electronic fingerprint scanners) and your signature captured and you get a receipt for you to return and pick up the card (I was told it would take six weeks).

My suggestions are;

The programme goes on for 60 days so wait until early/mid-July. Immigration folks said that they thought the crowds would decrease substantially after the first two weeks. I am not sure that is accurate as there are lots of folks that will wait until the last minute to register.
When you go (now or July) get there at 7:00 AM. I got there at 8:30 and there were probably 200 people a head of me.