By Tabora Bojang
Information Minister Dr Ismaila Ceesay has said the government will not be responsible for repayment of monies to private entities by prospective migrants for the Spain circular migration deal.
Following the approval of the migration agreement by lawmakers, Trade Minister Baboucarr Joof unveiled to The Standard the names of private entities that he said were licensed by the government to recruit Gambians interested to work in Spain.
The Ministry of Trade similarly issued a press release disclosing the names of companies licensed to recruit and entailed the eligibility criteria among others.
However, government spokesperson Ebrima G Sankareh issued a statement last week in which he stated there was a mistake in the previous press release issued by the Trade Ministry that stated that private entities would recruit workers for Spain and that only government will do that.
This created a huge confusion for prospective migrants, especially those who already made payments to private entities.
Some applicants made claims to The Standard alleging that ‘licensed recruitment agencies’ have levied huge amounts on them for their application processes. One of the applicants shared a receipt with The Standard confirming payment of D50,000 to one of the companies.
At this time, Minister Joof warned that any entity found collecting money from applicants will be dealt with including revocation of their licences.
Following the announcement that no private agency is now allowed to recruit for Spain, many people who made payments are worried about their fate. Some of them blame the government for being inconsistent in their pronouncement.
Others believe the government needs to help them recover monies already paid to these entities since it was their announcement that made them believe the private entities are the rightful institutions to carry out the process.
Speaking to reporters at the government press conference yesterday, Information Minister Ceesay said the government had initially planned to “allow agencies to do the recruitment” and the Ministry of Trade will do the final selection “but after a lot of noise” the government now decided to do recruitment through the directorate of labour.
Asked if this change of position by the government had anything to do with a leaked letter on social media purportedly written by the Spanish government cautioning the Gambian authorities against allowing private entities to partake in the implementation of the agreement, the minister said: “I cannot confirm whether the
Spanish Government has written anything to the [Gambia] Government. I also saw that letter on social media but I cannot confirm it.”
“Since the onset we have told Gambians not to pay any money to any agency to travel to Spain. We indicated which agencies are to be responsible for Spain, Saudi and UAE, but the government came back to say no agency will be allowed to do recruitment and that recruitment will be carried out by the government. So whoever went and paid money to these agencies, the government is not responsible for that because we did not tell anyone to go and pay money to them. We have made it clear that this is free, so let them go back to the agencies to return them their money,” Dr. Ceesay stated.
