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A clandestine network between immigration officials and employment agencies could have created a legal vacuum even for people wanted for a crime who would not otherwise be able to leave the country.
borkena
January 4, 2021
Ethiopia arrested 21 senior immigration officials and agency workers who are implicated in a serious corruption scandal involving the facilitation of illegal departure for those who would not otherwise qualify for it.
They were facilitating the exit from Ethiopia in exchange for a financial bribe, according to the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), as reported by FBC.
The people who run employment agency companies are said to be part of the corruption scandal.
Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Affairs officers located at Bole International Airport coordinated with employment agencies with legal status offering employer and job seeker matching services to send workers who do not meet legal criteria out of the country, he said. the NISS.
The employment agencies involved in the scandal are said to have received a lot of money from those unable to leave the country by legal means and shared it with immigration officials. And NISS claims to have evidence of a nexus of corruption between immigration officials and the employment agencies involved in it.
The FBC report said that more than 1 million Ethiopian Birr were recovered from random home searches of three immigration officials. In addition, seven passports were recovered from the residences of three agencies.
A total of 37 passports have been recovered from the suspects’ residences.
Aside from the loss of revenue for the government, the corruption network is creating a security breach of its own. People wanted for a crime could bypass the immigration agreement.
“Because the corruption network is extensive, people who are wanted for a crime and are not allowed to leave the country have easily left the country,” the NISS is quoted as saying. People who are part of what the government calls the “TPLF board” could have left the country had it not been for the intervention of the NISS and federal police, it is claimed.
The Federal Police Commission partnered with the NISS to arrest the six Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Affairs officials and five employees of agencies linking job applicants and employers.
The NISS statement also indicated, as reported by FBC, that NISS professionals are deployed in different parts of the country, including the Tigray, Benishangul Gumuz and Agar regions of Ethiopia, as part of the law enforcement measures taken by the NISS. federal government, to ensure safety.
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