(COLOMBO) – Sri Lanka’s Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara has directed the police and other authorities to launch a massive crack down on rogue foreign employment recruitment agencies known to collect large fees from individuals with the promise of lucrative jobs overseas.
Additionally, Nanayakkara informed the top management of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) to provide the necessary logistical facilities for conducting thorough investigations into this job recruiting scam at the very earliest.
The SLBFE is the State authority on the foreign employment industry in the country.
The Minister emphasized that only licensed foreign employment agencies are authorized to accept payments for foreign employment placements.
Recent developments have also indicated that certain rogue job agencies have started to recruit Sri Lankan ex-security force personnel for the Ukraine and Russian armies and the matter has also been raised by the Opposition in the country’s Parliament.
There are hundreds if not thousands of bogus foreign job recruiting agencies throughout the country and many of them are known to operate with the connivance of errant Government officials, a spokesman for the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) said.
“The illegal activities of these rogue agencies only help to tarnish the good image of the foreign employment industry and therefore this scourge has to be wiped out”, the spokesman said.
