Kenya needs tighter control on issuance of work permits

The Department of Immigration just completed verification of permits held by foreign nationals in Kenya. The May 21, 2018 to July 22, 2018 exercise was aimed at securing credible data on migrants (workers and retirees in Kenya); getting a feel of the various categories that carry the most work permits and possibly curb cases where foreign nationals take up job reserved for Kenyans.

The fact that top Interior ministry officials visited the verification centre severally served to show how important this exercise was to the government.

While briefing the nation on the just concluded exercise, the Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) reported that 26,829 permits were scrutinised. A further 6,194 issued permits were not submitted for verification, with 2,760 holders giving reasons why they never turned up for the exercise while 3,434 gave no explanations. The latter group has been put on a watch list in a move aimed at intercepting the holders so that they can be interrogated to establish their status in Kenya.

Even so, the CS’s presser did not satiate the curiosity of Wanjiku who wanted to know how many work permits were found to be either counterfeit, wrongly issued to foreigners when the jobs can be done by Kenyans or held by individuals other than the ones authorised to carry them (impostors). There are also other questions that need to be answered such as what impact a more stringent immigration process has had on the economy and what are the next steps in fishing out violators of immigration law who were initially estimated by the CS to be in the range of 100,000. In an effort to tighten immigration processes, new guidelines to streamline issuance of permits and passes are likely to be rolled out. Already, the department has been effecting the requirements of the Kenyanisation policy that speak to jobs reserved for citizens. The activation of the localisation policy requires, in part, a skills inventory upon which decisions to Kenyanise specific roles can be based.

One element of efficiency that has been introduced is the simultaneous submission of the permit application for the principal applicant and the dependant pass applications for the accompanying family members. This potentially means that the entire family can travel in to Kenya at the same time once all applications are approved.

From a controls perspective, there is a need to refine the regulations that allow 90 days to visit or to conduct business. As it stands now, the period given to applicants entices violators to use the 90 days for work related activities. Perhaps additional scrutiny of visa applications needs to be introduced.

Other expected improvements include the digitisation of the work permit registers – which actually triggered the verification exercise in the first place to ensure that the digital registers contained scrubbed/accurate data.

Good immigration practice is a function of a sufficient immigration force, equipped personnel, a pragmatic philosophy that propels both policy and law, a collaboration of security agencies and a no-nonsense enforcement of the immigration law. Positive strides have been made but there is more to be done on this journey.

ROBERT ASWANI AND DENNIS EMOJONG, Senior managers at PwC Kenya’s Immigration Services unit.