By Cathy Maulidi;
Some Israel farms job seekers Friday petitioned Parliament demanding that the review of the labour export be put on hold first to allow them travel first.
On Thursday, Parliament passed a resolution to review the Malawi-Israel labour agreement.
They recommended a new formal government-to-government deal that will ensure more benefits for workers including new recruits from rural areas.
But the youths Friday told Parliament that they are failing to travel to Israel despite having gone through all the required processes due to the plans by government to have the labour deal reviewed first.
A representative of the job seekers, Daniel Katson, expressed worry that after getting their passports, medical and police reports done, authorities are delaying their process to leave because of the review plans.
“It is sad that after we have spent over K500,000 for the papers to qualify us to travel, we have come across these plans from the government that they want to review this labour trade. We want that stopped. Government should let us travel first and commence that process later,” Katson said.
The youths also asked Parliament to help them expedite their travel process, saying they borrowed the money which they used to process the travel papers.
“We borrowed the money and now the money lenders are on our neck. Parliament should intervene. They should help us because we really need to travel to work as soon as possible so that we can start making money and pay back those we are owing,” Katson added.
Speaking after receiving the petition from the youths, Mwanza West Member of Parliament Joyce Chitsulo who also read a report in Parliament on the Israeli farm jobs on Thursday said the concerns would be directed to right authorities.
“We have assured them that we are going to look into that. It’s just unfortunate that we are getting a petition after we already presented a report in Parliament on concerns surrounding the Israeli farm jobs.
“We would have included this in our recommendations that as a country we should consider those that have already done the arrangements before the review. We recommended that we should be using MPs to identify people in the new arrangement but looking at the situation at hand, they have already done all the processes; therefore they should go because it will not be fair to stop them,” Chitsulo said.
She assured the youths that the issue would be discussed in Parliament and the Ministry of Labour would be asked to help those who completed all processes first.
Minister of Labour Agnes Nyalonje said she would present a ministerial statement in the house on issues surrounding the labour export and government’s plans.
The report of the delegation that travelled to Israel which Chitsulo read in Parliament on Thursday said there are shortfalls in the recruitment process and some of the conditions.
“Considering that there is competition from other countries to export labour to Israel, it is imperative for the Government of Malawi to expedite the process of signing the government-to-government agreement that would guide formal operationalisation of labour export,” the report reads.
In the report, the MPs recommended that recruitment of workers should be done at constituency level by accredited agents, while the government through the Ministry of Labour should be solely responsible for regulating the labour export processes.
“Considering that there have been challenges in the identification and recruitment of labour at the initial stage of labour export, it is highly recommended that identification of workers should be done at constituency level with the involvement of both the Member of Parliament for the area and the Area Development Committee.
“The contact point to trigger the identification process of workers would be the office of the member of Parliament,” the report adds.
The team further recommended to the government to prioritise the utilisation of National Economic Empowerment Fund (Neef) loans to process passports, medical examination papers, air tickets and other relevant documents for the selected workers.
“The loan deductions would be done at source on monthly basis to recover the funds provided by Neef as loans,” the report says.
Other recommendations are that the government should prioritise the establishment of an embassy in Israel whose staff should, among others, include a labour officer and his trade and investment counterpart.
