By Pemphero Malimba:
The Office of the Ombudsman has indicated that it will conduct investigations into issues surrounding the Malawi and Israel governments’ labour export programme.
The development has elated a grouping of 1,500-plus youths who are under the banner Israel Job Seekers (IJS).
The youth say they are banking their hopes on the Ombudsman’s probe.
Initially, in a letter dated December 20 2024, Ombudsman Grace Malera indicated that her office would embark on the inquiry on dates to be communicated.
According to Malera, the inquiry was expected to start on December 23 2024 but was rescheduled to pave the way for Christmas and New Year holidays.
Malera said Sunday that the inquiry would go ahead.
“I can’t specifically say [for] how many days the inquiry will be conducted because how long it will be carried [out] depends on how the evidence is coming in.
“So, in the week of 6 January 2025, we will communicate to all parties involved about the dates of the inquiry,” Malera said.
In response, ISJ acting Chairperson Macbeth Banda said yesterday that the group had hope that those conducting the inquiry would help address their concerns.
“We are expecting that those who are conducting the inquiry will agree with us that, if a chance is there, they [government] should be working together with private recruitment agencies or surrender [the task] or empower the private recruitment agencies to continue where they stopped because there was no proper transition between the agencies and the government,” Banda said.
The Ombudsman’s office recently received a complaint pertaining to allegations of unfair treatment in the Israeli farms’ labour export programme.
The inquiry—according to a letter signed by Malera on December 13 2024 and directed to the Ministry of Labour Principal Secretary Chikondano Mussa—was expected to be carried out from December 23 2024 when Mussa was expected to make oral submissions in response to the complaint.
Among other things, the Ombudsman’s office was expecting Mussa to explain reasons why private agents were removed from the arrangement of recruiting and dispatching the Israeli farms’ job seekers to Israel, steps taken to expedite the process of recruiting the Israel job seekers and the inclusion of the complainants in such processes.
This, according to the Ombudsman, was premised on allegations that the IJS had faced injustices due to delays by the government, through the Ministry of Labour, to facilitate their trip to Israel after taking over the arrangement from agents.
The grouping is also lamenting that after the government took over the role of sending the youth to Israel, the youth were just languishing in poverty in Malawi.
ISJ started raising eyebrows over the programme following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Malawi Government officials and their Israeli counterparts in April this year.
The agreement meant that Israel would only be engaging with the Government of Malawi in the recruitment of Malawian youths to work in farms in Israel.
This scrapped off the earlier engagement where private agents had facilitated the recruitment of some youths to Israel, where the first group left the country in November 2023.
So far, about 30 youths have been recruited to work in farms in Israel under the government-to-government arrangement.
Ministry of Labour spokesperson Nellie Kapatuka recently told The Daily Times that the ministry would send more youths to Israel soon.
“In the press statement that the ministry released a month or so ago, it was indicated that the clearing and sending of these workers will be happening in tranches. A process to have another group sent is already underway,” Kapatuka said.
She maintained the government’s position that it would not change the current recruitment arrangement.
“For your information, the Israel government made it very clear that they will only be dealing with the Malawi Government in the labour export programme. It is now purely a government-to-government arrangement,” she said.
