PONDER MY THOUGHTS BY Andrew Keili RANGERS SAGA: MANPOWER SOLUTIONS TO DEBACLE A young acquaintance of mine recently visited me asking for my assistance in his venture to travel to Canada for work. He had paid two thousand dollars to Rangers Manpower Solutions as advance payment and had received his Visa and Work permit from them. He proudly showed me his Visa- stamped passport and a photocopy of his work permit. All he needed now was my “small assistance” in fully or partially meeting the remaining two thousand dollars. I was a bit skeptical about the authenticity of the Visa and wondered how a guy I knew under other circumstances had metamorphosed into a “Master mechanic” and had relatively easily got his work permit and offer letter of a job with a monthly salary of eight thousand dollars for a fixed work term of two years. Needless to say I could not afford the ”small assistance”. A newspaper report at the time of opening the institution stated thus: The company which has been operating for six months in the country, is currently working on 50 job placements for Sierra Leoneans in Canada. The company operates in Zambia, Namibia and Gabon and also provide jobs for Newmont Mining company in Australia and Kap Mining in Canada…. He (the CEO) explained that his company does not take the salaries from clients but takes commission from the employing institutions. He thanked the government for their very accommodating spirit, especially the support from the Ministry of Labour, the Police, the Immigration and the services of Dr Willoughby, as we process the documents of prospective job seekers. Chairman of the ceremony, Peter Tayong, said that RMS is a credible company that is operating in other African countries providing job for job seekers.” Rangers indeed appeared a credible company and several credible people touted the virtues of the company. Several months later the CEO has disappeared and the whole project has been found out to be a big scam. Dr. Patrick Biamungu Njawe, the CEO is on the run after having issued more than 80 fake visas for Canada. One newspaper report says- “He is said to have travelled with business agreements with over 200 Sierra Leoneans who completed documentation with him for an official work trip to Canada at the cost of $ 5,000 each. Eighty Sierra Leoneans out of the 200 applicants had already secured visas for Canada despite all tedious procedures and protocols.” The duping of our young people is a not a new phenomenon. There were complaints in the past of the misuse of our young folks in Iraq by employment agencies. Recent reports state that Forty-six Sierra Leonean youths who left Sierra Leone for the People’s Republic of China are stranded in Uruguay. The report from “Newswatch” says- “The youths who are mostly between twenty and thirty years of age, were recruited by a Chinese company, Jiade Ocean Zhou Shan Zhe Jiang China Company Limited, for a fishing crew in November 8, 2013.One of the crew members who spoke to Newswatch on condition of anonymity via telephone from Uruguay on June 31, lamented that they can no longer cope with their current conditions; ‘as the employer is forcing them to work under harsh and inhumane conditions.” The Labour Ministry had certified their documents. As for the Rangers Manpower situation the prolific Isaac Massaquoi writing in Politico analysed the situation better than I would: “As far I am concerned, all it took for the operators of Power Rangers Solutions to take away so much money from struggle young people under the guise of giving them a job in Canada is this: a little cash invested in paying for an office space, occupied by a bold master tactician, a reasonably sophisticated but cheap public relations and marketing strategy , weak and corrupt public institutions and a disillusioned and vulnerable youth population eager to flee to foreign countries to seek better lives that they don’t want to work or fight for back home. That’s all.” Youth migration from poor countries like Sierra Leone with low probability of employment to richer countries where there is an opportunity to find some sort of job and better welfare conditions will always be attractive. One young man interviewed on radio responded to a question from a radio reporter who seemed to infer he must have been bunkers to fall for such a scam responded aptly: “My man, I am not a fool. Life is about risks and I was desperate for a job and could not get one in this country. But looking at it from another angle, Rangers had big offices with the biggest banners in town on Campbell Street and Rawdon Street. The CEO hobnobbed with important people in this country and we had all confidence that they were credible. If they were not credible why did the authorities allow them to operate?” He may have a point. It behoves the government to protect our gullible and vulnerable young folk who seek a brighter future. It is therefore surprising that the various Government MDAs who could have protected them in this case slept in their wings. The Labour Ministry has given the most ludicrous excuse I have heard on this issue. In a newspaper report titled- “We will protect our citizens – Labour”, the following is attributed to the Labour Ministry by AWOKO: . “The man who claims to be Congolese was being waited upon by the Ministry of Labour to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) before he vanished. In that respect, the Ministry has suspended his Agency and others who cannot cope with the contract as outlined by the Labour Ministry. Teambo (the Minister) also told Awoko that one of the first things outlined in the contract is that Agency must provide the applicants with return tickets, instead of asking them to pay for it. He also stressed that the applicants must be over 18 years of age, accommodation and transport must be provided including food and laundry and above all the position for which the person applied for should not be reduced to a lower position. He also explained that the Agents should not charge repatriation fee because they should have bought return air fares for them. Minister Teambo also stressed that no foreigner will be allowed to operate this kind of agency again.” This is codswallop and the obvious use of the wrong expression “waited upon” by AWOKO which the Editor seems to have missed may indeed be apt in this case-Indeed the Ministry “waited upon” the Congolese!. Talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. What a strict Ministry with all these “rules”! What about the CID? I overheard a CID Officer saying after being accused of letting the CEO go after apprehending him who gave the excuse that at the time of his apprehension it had not been ascertained that he had committed any crime and he was let go “on his own recognition”-wh atever that means. The CID had apparently contacted the Foreign Affairs Ministry to ascertain the authenticity of the Visas and work permits but had not “heard from them”. One radio report stated that the CEO had offered to pay for two CID Officers to travel to Canada to verify that the documents were authentic- Lord have mercy! A Police spokesman said- “It has been proven beyond all reasonable doubts that he has escaped to an unknown destination”. Sherlock Holmes indeed! Elementary my dear Watson! What about Immigration? I suppose no red flags were raised with so many young people seeking passports, facilitated by staff of RMS. They were probably more interested in how much money was collected. Surely it is not rocket science for a whole string of MDAs to ascertain whether the company and the entire scheme were fake. Apart from fairly mundane checks in Canada, RMS had made several claims at the start that could have easily been checked. Why do Sierra Leoneans sell out other country folks for a mere pittance? My friend Winstanley Bankole Johnson in his excellent syndicated article- “The crumbs.. just the crumbs” attempts to answer this when he says “…..the dislike or the equally relative ease with which foreigners access our hospitality. It is such dispositions of inferiority and consummate complex that has earned our country the cliché of being “too free” and prone to endless exploitations by those with cross-border cultural affinities.” One does not need to strain his imagination to determine that Dr Njawe must have been a “very generous man”. Time indeed for the government to set up an enquiry on this saga. Ponder my thoughts.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 01:30:38 +0000
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