By: Thaimu Bai Sesay
As part of addressing unemployment in the country, the Slice Of Success (SOS) Global Investment Sierra Leone, an international recruitment Agency registered with a license with the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Security has through the bilateral relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Government of Sierra Leone began the recruitment of one thousand less privilege women to work as housemaids in Saudi Arabia, without paying for a visa, ticket and accommodation fee.
Speaking to A-Z Newspaper, Usif Conteh, a Staff at SOS Global Investment Sierra Leone informed that the Slice of Success (SOS) Global Investment is an international recruitment agency that does overseas employment and also across Africa. Usif affirmed that the housemaid recruitment process that was ongoing at their office in Freetown, Dwazark 4 Cannon Street was borne out of the bilateral relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone Government facilitated by SOS Global Investment. He said the motive was basically part of addressing the high rate of unemployment in the country.
“What is happening here is that we have a demand to recruit about a thousand housemaid to travel and work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This program is for women with primary focus on those who can read and write and can at least communicate well with Basic English. Applicants should be between 21 years of age and 40 years and should be physically and mentally fit. When you come to the office you would be required to pay a registration fee of 100 Nle,” he stated.
Further detailing on the requirements and processes, SOS Usif said applicants do not need to have a WASSCE result but should be able to articulate Basic English and write clearly. He added that applicants would go through an interview and if selected they would have to pay some amount of money for their medicals. For those without a passport book at the moment and could not afford it, he said the Company would provide them but would eventually deduct that from their salaries.
SOS Usif Conteh intimated that the company partnering with SOS and doing the recruitment in Saudi Arabia is called SMATCO, one of the leading manpower recruitment agency in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He confirmed that the SMATCO Agency had earlier sent two representative in Sierra Leone but said they had returned, as he assured of continuing the interviews online. He said each housemaid would be paid 800 SAR an amount close to 5,000 Nle in Saudi on monthly basis. As there was SLCB agents, he said each housemaid would be required to open an account with SLCB as some of their money would be saved in there.
Confirming the legitimacy of SOS Global Investment on the housemaid recruitment and their operations in entirety, the Information Officer of the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Security Aminata Phidelia Allie confirmed that the Ministry is aware of the operations of SOS Global Investment as she further confirmed that the Agency is registered with a License. “SOS is one of the agencies that obtain a license to undertake recruitments or employments in the Gulf State. The Ministry is not directly involved in the recruitment process but do provide monitoring and oversight to ensure that the process go through in the right way, does not charge overburden fee and ensure that every successful applicant obtains an exit permit which verified the legality of the migrants,” he said.
The Information Officer revealed that as travel programs are not entirely free she affirmed that applicants preparing to travel should have to obtain their travelling documents ranging from passport books, medical and others which are not free. On the medical, she intimated that there were certified medical centres with fixed fees which they agreed for applicants to pay for every test undertaken.
On the safety and security of housemaids that would be soon travelling, Madam Phidelia said the Saudi Arabia Government is one of the countries that have a bilateral agreement with the Government of Sierra Leone in terms of labour migration and assured the safety of the soon going housemaids from SOS Global Investment. “All those that would be sent by an agency that have a license are the people the Government would be able to account for. These are the people that would not get lost, that would not suffer and would be under the umbrella of the Sierra Leone Embassy,” she assured.
One of the SOS applicants for the housemaid job, Aminata M. Kanu in an exclusive interview expressed that she had successfully gone through all the screening process ranging. She detailed that she first bought a form, sat to an exam, field a form, went through an interview and passed, took her medical test and passed, and was finally called to sign a contract. “I paid 100 Nle registration fee, 4,000 Nle for medical fee and ended up spending 6,500 Nle as total fee for all the processes,” he intimated.
Started her processes on Tuesday and already ended on Wednesday, Aminata expressed that she had done through all the processes and everything was successful for her. She expressed hope to depart on Friday as the Agency assured. She however said there were applicants facing some challenges with regards to their medical results saying some do have bad medical results.
