There is an old practice amongst multinational companies operating
in Nigeria which is still holding sway to this day. This anachronism stems from
the fact that in almost all the big foreign companies operating in the country,
Nigerians are never allowed to work in certain management positions. Despite
their qualifications and competence, these Nigerians working in these
organizations are not even made to understudy their foreign counterparts with
negligible remuneration while the expatriates are paid huge sums of money in
foreign currencies here in Nigeria.
This development was what compelled the Sixth Senate to issue a
threat that some multinational oil exploration and construction companies,
including Halliburton and Shell would appear before it over
violation of expatriate regulations. More than five years after that threat,
nothing has been heard about the matter. According to the then Chairman of
Senate Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity, Senator Wilson Ake, some of these erring companies which are accused
of flagrant abuse of expatriate laws, are expected to give details of their
compliance to expatriate and labour laws in Nigeria.
It is an old gambit. The observation by the Senate committee that
over 60 per cent of these companies are guilty of this charge is rather soft on
them as all the oil and construction companies operating in Nigeria are into
this mess. We recall that in 2004, as part of a 19-point deal reached at a
stakeholders meeting involving government, oil companies and organised Labour
to avert a planned nationwide strike, the ministry of Internal Affairs and the
Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, pledged to work out ways of effective
policing and implementation of the under-study clause in the expatriate quata
approval, to forestall the endemic cases of abuse in the nation’s over-violated
oil and gas sector. Twelve years down the road, we are still on the musical
chair. There is a big racket here as our Immigration Service is kept on a fixed
retainership.
The deliberate refusal of expatriate personnel to place Nigerians
in under-study capacities has undermined the advancement of semi-skilled
Nigerian workers and the objective of technology transfer. It is appalling that
over the years not a few of these foreign companies would take over even
functions that Nigerians can conveniently perform. Since 1963 when the Nigerian
Immigration Service was carved out of the Nigeria Police, expectations that
expatriate quota regulations would be effectively enforced have yet to be met.
In consequence, foreigners have oftentimes been deployed by companies
to positions whose responsibilities could be efficiently discharged by
skilled Nigerians. This remains a factor in the high unemployment situation in
the country, especially in regard to Nigerian graduates in Engineering and related
technical specialism. The Senate may however have to review aspects of the
aforesaid regulations in the light of the current drive for foreign investments
and the pursuit of full liberalisation. Government should look for more
forward-looking policies that would make foreign investments as mutually
beneficial to prospective investors and the country at large. Why, for
instance, must the butcher at Goodies, Ikeja in Lagos be a foreigner?
Notwithstanding the provisions of the law at the Investment Promotion
Council that every investor is expected to have a specific number of expatriates,
structures and institutions must be put in place for the abuse not to subsist.
We must note that a new trade and investment philosophy has emerged as part of
the New World Order. Countries now have several concessions they want from
each other to hope for progress without a single broad negotiation. The more
horses there are to trade, the more logical it becomes to trade them within the
same market without prejudice. If the Nigerian government should have the
political will to invest in human capital development and give Nigerians the
needed technical and vocational education and training necessary to change our
environment, the need to understudy expatriates will not arise as many
Nigerians would definitely perform better than their foreign counterparts.
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