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Kenya to tighten employment laws on foreign charity workers

Xinhua, June 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kenya plans to tighten employment laws on foreigners working in charities, or NGOs, in the country in order to protect the local labour market, officials said on Thursday.

The executive director of Kenya's Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Coordination Board, Fazul Mahamed, told a media briefing in Nairobi that the "the new laws will specify the cases when the NGOs can employ expatriates."

He said that foreigners should only be employed where there are no locals with comparable skills available.

The new regulations will also require that foreign charity workers to contribute to skill training of Kenyans for a specified period of time.

Mahamed said the population of foreigners in Kenya's charities was approximately 10,000, out of which 2,500 were based in Kenya but working in the rest of the East African region.

Official estimates show the charity sector brought in about four billion U.S. dollars to the Kenyan economy in 2015.

A recent report issued by the NGO Coordination Board indicated foreign workers in Kenya's charity sector earn four times more than what Kenyan nationals earn in the same job.

"We will therefore issue guidelines on how to harmonize the salaries between local and foreign staff," Mahamed said.

The cardinal reason for engaging in charitable work is volunteerism and not for self enrichment, he said.

The NGO Coordination Board is currently holding consultations with the charity sector on modalities of how to roll out the new regulations. Endit