By Spy Uganda
Middle East: Thousands of Ugandan energetic youth have been dipped into first-class poverty after Ugandan ambassador in Saudi Arabia H.E Isaac Ssebulime cancelled over 4000 job orders citing lack of inadequate resources including Embassy’s rent, meals, operational facilitation among others.
This comes after Saudi Arabian labour companies issued an order of 4000 Ugandans to work as maids, nurses, English teachers and warehouse workers giving green lights to local firms in Kampala to kick off the recruitment process.
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It is worth noting that TheSpy Uganda last month established that officials working at Uganda’s Embassy in Dubai, H.E the Ambassador inclusive, were living and feeding on the Almighty’s mercy after their Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is the concerned body turned deaf ears on their requests to their cash crisis cries.
We have since learnt that although the labour export industry, which the embassy coordinates in Arab countries, contributes over USD 1.4 billion annually, the money is put in the consolidated fund and nothing returns to the office to run errands, causing everything to come to a standstill. Infact, official argue that if they had allowed them to collect money and use it to run their errands, all the sufferings you see at the various embassies would be history.
“After collecting all the billions, you’ve to send it to Kampala then send a request to them to send you money for tea bags, toilet papers, fuel, accommodation,rent, fuel, cars etcetera, which take ages to come,” a worker fumed on phone from Saudi Arabia.
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Dubai is one of the world’s largest labour export markets, this answers the kind of life innocent Ugandan teenagers are passing through since the Embassy that has always been their closest mother is nursing its own deep injuries.
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As a result, some workers are going through hardships that even when they come to the embassy for assistance, there’s little the embassy can do because they’re as poor as a church mouse.
According to Baker Akantabira, the Chairman of the umbrella organization of Labour exporters in Uganda termed Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA), who travelled to specifically Saudi Arabia on January 18, 2021, on a fact-finding mission on the actual lifestyle of the Ugandan girls, the situation is soo alarming that requires Ugandan Government to intervene to save the situation.
Girls who are still sleeping under the embassy trees alleged that Embassy officials have no assistance they can offer since they’re also surviving by God’s grace over lack of funds.
“When we request the officials here to assist us by taking us back to Uganda, they instead list for us their problems which they say Government is not working on. They show you that they even eat meals on credit, sleep on credit, now we’re stuck,” one of the girls told our source.
“The situation here is disheartening whereby some girls have been sleeping under the tree outside the Embassy for over two weeks and their offices both in Saudi and in Uganda are not responsive,” said Baker in a letter sent to his UAERA members asking each company to improvise $300 to save distressed workers since the Embassy is in a total mess to act.
Therefore, as a result, Akantambira noted that labour companies if they want job orders to be processed they must finance the embassy despite having a fully concerned Ministry.
