Kiambu county warns job-seekers about bogus recruitment scam

If you have received a call asking you to send money to secure a job in Kiambu County Government and you obliged, then woe unto you. You have been conned.

On Friday, the county government issued a warning against fraudsters conning unsuspecting members of the public with nonexistent jobs in the county at a fee.

In a notice by the County public service board, the county government has advised the public to beware of conmen calling people soliciting for money with fake job offers.

“This is to inform the general public that there are people purporting to offer jobs on behalf of the County Government of Kiambu. The County Government of Kiambu only recruits its employees through the County Public Service Board and not through individuals,” the notice read in parts.

Desperate times

The warning is among the many issued by various organisations to the public against fraudsters offering fake jobs.

Last month, Public Service Commission came out to deny a job advertisement circulating on social media.

The advertisement had announced job openings in various government departments, Huduma centres, hospitals and parastatals.

It listed 650 offices secretaries’ posts, 1,225 clerical officer jobs and 3,204 community health officer jobs among other slots.

“We wish to caution potential applicants to ignore the advert, which we suspect is motivated by ill intentions of defrauding members of the public,” Public Service Commission CEO Simon Rotich said.

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) released in 2018 indicate that seven million Kenyans are unemployed with 1.4 million actively looking for work.

Last year, the economy created 800,000 new jobs, a drop from 2017 where 897,000 jobs were created.

Notably, in 2018, a partly 78,400 jobs were generated by the formal sector. The formal jobs created were fewer than the number of the 2016 universities graduates which the Commission for University Education put at 88,773.