It is alarming, the rate at which job recruitment agencies are fast springing up and duping unsuspecting applicants under the pretext of securing them jobs with various institutions and companies in the country. The agencies, located mostly in Accra, are said to be collecting huge amounts from unemployed graduates without securing them jobs. The job seekers pay between GH¢50 and GH¢100 as commitment fee, according to the Ghanaian Times investigations which showed that most of the agencies are not capable of linking the desperate graduates to any jobs. They extort money from the job seekers by re-writing their curriculum vitae (CV) at a fee claiming very often that the ones they brought are badly written. They also deceive their clients to attend interview seminars supposed to sharpen their skills for which they pay between GH¢30 and GH¢40. A victim of the scam, Mable Agbenato, a graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon, who spoke to the Ghanaian Times, said she went to one of such service providers in Accra seven months ago seek to employment. According to her, she was asked to pay GH¢20 into a Standard Chartered Bank account and later bring the receipt together with two passport-sized pictures and her CV as part of the registration process. She said when she sent the requirements to the company, she was surprised to hear that her CV was not well written and, therefore, she needed to pay an extra GH¢10 for a new CV to be written for her which she did. Later, she was asked to pay GH¢30 for an interview seminar but she declined. After waiting for almost seven months and no job was forthcoming, Mabel said she decided to confront the agency, but she was told that it was too early for her to expect a job. "I was shocked when one of the staff told me to go home and rest because some clients have waited for almost two years and so my situation is not different," she said. Another victim, Manfred Amissah, a Senior High School graduate, narrating his ordeal, said he went to another agency in Kumasi to assist him secure a job, but he was still unemployed. "After collecting GH¢50 from me, I never heard from them again. They always gave one excuse after the other and it is almost two years since they collected my money," he said. Abigail Mintah, a graduate of the Institute of Professional Studies (lPS), also narrated how she and four others paid a total of GH¢250 to an agency in Accra to secure them jobs, but none of them was given any job although they produced the necessary requirements. "It is sad the way these people are extorting monies from desperate job seekers. I think government should intervene," she said. When contacted, Mr. Eugene Korletey, Assistant Chief Labour Officer in charge of Industrial Relations at the Labour Department, which is responsible for licensing employment agencies said they were supposed to augment the work of the department. He said 82 agencies had been certified all over the country with the majority sited in Accra and Tema. Mr. Korletey said the department had become aware that some of the agencies were exploiting clients, and there were even others operating illegally. He said the situation where some of the agencies took monies from clients without finding them jobs was an outright violation of the terms and conditions under which they operate. He explained that the agencies were supposed to find jobs for their clients within three months of paying the client fee or in default, a refund of 50 percent of the fee is made to the client. Mr. Albert Dwamena, Assistant Chief Officer in charge of employment, said some of the agencies were also violating the rules of engagement by refusing to provide quarterly reports of their activities. He said a monitoring team of the department would soon begin an exercise to sanction such agencies by withdrawing their license and caution those operating without license to end their activities or would be prosecuted. Mr. Dwamena advised job seekers to be wary of fake agencies and deal only with the credible ones. An Official of L'aine Services, one of the recruitment agencies, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was part of their policy to charge the registration fee to get a client on their database. "However, that is not a guarantee for a client to get a job," she said. Concerning training seminar fees the official said the agency does not force people to take part although clients are advised to participate because they are helpful. "The fact that other agencies are operating illegally, does not mean that L'aine is also not genuine," she said. "We have our certificate to operate which we renew every two years," she said. She said the agency had been able to secure jobs for a lot of clients and, therefore, cannot be considered to be duping people. Source: The Ghanaian Times