Kenyan Man Promised KSh 4m Salary In UK Sent Home With KSh 2m Debt

• Kenyan caregiver Anthony Mbare's UK dream job ended unceremoniously, leaving him with a KSh 1.8 million debt
• Mbare's gruelling caregiving schedule left him unpaid for long hours, adding to his financial woes in the UK
• Hopes for a better life dashed as Mbare returned to Kenya with debt, job loss, and the impending sale of his family home

In 2022, Anthony Mbare was among the 57, 693 people who left Kenya for the UK to take up jobs in the caregiving sector but months later, he is back in the country with a KSh 1.8 million debt.

Mbare left for KSh 3.9 million job

For Mbare, the move to the UK presented an opportunity to transform his family's future, and he uprooted his life in Kenya to the UK after paying KSh 460,000 (£2,500) in “admin” fees to a domiciliary agency.

According to The Guardian, he claimed he was promised a full-time job with a KSh 3.9million annual salary – 10 times what he could make back home. His visa, however, put him at the mercy of his bosses.

Mbare would start working at 7 am and last 16 hours having worked on about 10 clients.

All was going well, but less than a year after he arrived, he said he was forced to return to Nairobi after his employer fired him and terminated his visa sponsorship.

The caregiver said his boss took the drastic step after he raised concerns about working conditions.

He was also not given a reference thwarting his chances of finding another care sector sponsor – which made him unable to remain in the UK. The company denies wrongdoing and disputes Mbare’s account.

According to Mbare, he started working in September 2022, and although the job was challenging, he made friends with his clients who were mostly elderly people receiving end-of-life care – and was treated by some relatives as “part of the family”.

Mbare goes for long periods without pay

On arrival, he realised the hours were fewer and that left him struggling to afford basic living costs.

Sometimes he would set off for the day before 7 am and return at 11 am but spend as little as two or three hours providing care to clients, split into half-hour chunks.

Given the long gaps between appointments and no pay for driving and waiting time, he realised he had gone for long periods unpaid.

According to payslips between September and January 2023, Mbare made between KSh 180,000 and KSh 202,000 (£980 and £1,100) each month – hundreds less than he expected.

At that rate, his total annual income would have been around KSh 2 million to KSh 2.4 million ( £12,000 to £13,000). However, with debts and school fees to pay, Mbare persevered.

After four months, Merit insisted he agree to a vehicle policy requiring him to pay the costs of road tax, insurance and upkeep for a company car used for driving between clients, which it had previously funded.

Merit fires Mbare

Alternatively, he could buy a car at a cost price, and a monthly fee would be deducted from his salary. Mbare says the changes would have cost him hundreds of pounds each month.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a slave. I didn’t know how I would ever pay it back," he said.

Mbare raised concerns with a manager, hoping to resolve the situation, but he was fired and told the Home Office was cancelling his visa sponsorship.

In a termination letter on January 20, 2023, Merit said they dismissed him for failure to comply with the new vehicle rules.

It also accused him of “insubordination” by “inciting other employees to disagree with our policies”.

Although Mbare tried to appeal against the decision, he did not get any help and his letter to the Home Office requesting help went unanswered.

On August 1, he received a letter saying that, unless he found another sponsor, he would have to leave the country within 60 days.

Now back with his family in Juja, the former carpenter said he didn't know how they would repay the £10,000 in debts he accrued in agency fees, training charges, flights, relocation costs and interest on loans, which he had expected to be able to repay through the UK job.

He will now have to sell the house his family built.

“I thought this job would make my life better,” he lamented.

Kenyan man loses lucrative UK job

In another story, Tom Mboya Opiyo, who had found a job in Europe, was heartbroken when the company called and rescinded the offer.

Mboya had resigned from his job as Unga Group Limited’s Head of ICT and spent the last six months doing relocation paperwork.

TUKO.co.ke learnt the family started selling household stuff, cars and moving out of the house they called home.