Job seekers will no longer be required to have clearance certificates when seeking employment.
This is after Members of Parliament unanimously supported the Employment Amendment Bill requiring job seekers not to pay for a clearance certificate from government agencies.
Normally, Kenyans seeking jobs have always been required to give out clearance certificates from various bodies which include; Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC), Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and Credit Reference Bureaus (CRB).
Each of these costs at least Ksh.1000.
Nominated Member of Parliament (MP) Gideon Keter sponsored the bill. It will (Bill), however, compel employers to spend their own cash to produce certificates for new hires.
He termed the previous Act, a criminalization of graduates by imposing on them the burden of applying for habitation certificates.
Keter cited the case of other countries like the United States that has mandated employers to take on the burden of criminal background checks on their new hires.
According to a survey by the Parliamentary Budget Office, the state earns Ksh.750 million from job seekers each year, but none of the funds reaches the youth pot.
Keter also mentioned that job seeking should not be an adventure where job seekers must prove that they are not criminals.
