When you hear their adverts on radio, they sound like serious companies or organisations offering genuine employment opportunities. But on the ground, the reality is completely different.
In their adverts, you hear statements like: “We want store managers, receptionists, cashiers, supervisors…” Yet all these are lies. These people are simply looking for unsuspecting youths to send into hawking.
When naïve youths hear such adverts, they rush to these so called companies. Upon arrival, they are asked to pay between 5,000 and 50,000 for registration. That is the first trap once you have paid your little money, you feel committed and unable to walk away.
Next, they tell you that you will undergo training. Then suddenly, they hand you plastics, glasses, flasks, and other items and send you out to hawk in the streets. They deceive you that this is “training,” yet in reality, that is the actual job. Many of these companies do not even have offices, counters, or stores where a “receptionist” or “store manager” would work as advertised.
Their so-called salary is purely commission-based. You earn 10% of whatever you manage to sell in a day. So if you sell items worth 20,000, your commission is only 2,000. That money is accumulated and supposedly paid at the end of the month.
But it is not guaranteed that you will sell every day. Some days, you return with nothing. On a good day, you might sell only 5,000 worth of items.
Worse still, even the commission is not paid in full. They pretend to track your daily sales, but when the month ends, you receive far less than what you earned that is if you even survive the whole month. Most people cannot hawk for thirty days; the work is exhausting, humiliating, and discouraging.
These individuals actually make money from the very people who are meant to be earning. That is why they advertise aggressively on radio stations.
If they attract 20–100 youths and each pays at least 10,000 registration, they have already collected a good amount of money without offering any real job.
Then the youths go out hawking for the first few days, get tired, give up, and walk away with no salary. But during those days, they have already made sales for the company for free.
That is how these people exploit innocent youths who are only looking for honest work.
Similarly to Pyramid Schemes
The same thing happens with SuperLife and other pyramid-style schemes. People are trapped. For schemes like SuperLife, it is even worse because individuals pay much more money to join. Once they pay, they fear quitting because they do not want to lose their investment, so they remain stuck, trying to recruit others just to recover their money.
These operations are structured to benefit the founders, not the victims.
Why Government Intervention Is Necessary
This is why the government urgently needs to:
Regulate such individuals and organisations
Enforce strict licensing requirements for job recruitment agencies
Ban deceptive job adverts on radio and social media
Punish companies that charge illegal registration fees
Provide public awareness campaigns to protect youths
Create official job centres where verified opportunities are posted
Introduce penalties for pyramid schemes and fake employment agencies
If the government does not step in, thousands of youths will continue being exploited, manipulated, and robbed in the guise of being offered employment.
These fraudulent companies are not just lying they are stealing hope, time, money, and dignity from young people who are simply trying to survive.
Compiled by, Aijuka cybert.
PFF coordinator Ntungamo District.
