Get to the bottom of jobs, scholarship fraud claims

Parents Barnaba Tuwei and Mary Too during the signing of an agreement with Maxglobal CEO Cornelius Kiplagat (right) on March 14, 2023. [Peter Ochieng, Standard]

The Senate Labour and Social welfare Committee is investigating a case in which 8,000 Kenyan students allegedly lost Sh700 million in a scam over foreign jobs and scholarships. The youths had either been promised jobs or an opportunity to further their studies in Qatar, Poland, Finland and Britain.

The complainants, some who claim to have gone into hiding after being threatened for bringing the case into public limelight, hail from Uasin Gishu County. They say they first became aware of the 'First Choice Recruitment and Consultancy Agency' when Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui, Uasin Gishu Senator Jackson Mandago and businessman David Lagat attended its launch on May 20, 2021, through roadshows and social media platforms.

From the same Uasin Gishu County, 110 students stranded in Finland were saved from the agony of deportation by a private agency, Maxglobal Group that came to their rescue in the nick of time. The plight of the students manifested after a trust fund run by the county government failed to dispatch their remittances for accommodation and college fees. The students are pursuing diploma and degree courses in Finland.

It would be hard to blame these unfortunate Kenyans for falling victim to the scheme-if that is what it was. When top government officials vouch for a project, it's hard for anyone to doubt it.

That said we need answers to these questions: What do these government officials know about officials behind the agency in question? Did they, perhaps, carry out background checks to ensure the agency was properly registered after meeting set requirements necessary to make it a legal entity? Who are these daring people who even after scamming students, go ahead and threaten them for speaking about it?

These are some of the questions that the Senate committee investigating the case should address in order to get to the bottom of this matter. The Uasin Gishu County Government should come clean on these issues. Individuals who will be found guilty of the scamming Kenyans and those responsible for the delay in disbursement of funds to Finland that nearly resulted in deportation of students must be dealt with.