THE ABUSE OF EXPATRIATE QUOTA

The law on expatriate quota should be enforced

The allegation by Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) that Indians are abusing the expatriate quota system in the oil and gas industry should be dealt

 with by relevant authorities. According to PENGASSAN president, Festus Osifo, Indians are taking over low-level jobs in a blatant abuse of the expatriate quota system. “In Sterling Oil today, it will amaze you to discover that we have more Indians working there compared to the number of Nigerians,” said Osifo who added that the union have been engaging the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB) without result. “In fact, up to vulcanizers, you have Indians carrying out such low jobs and functions in their plants as operators

and some are even gate keeping operators.”

Despite the local capacities that exist in this sector which holds prospective job opportunities for thousands of Nigerians, many jobs are arbitrarily and unlawfully filled up with expatriates by some firms in the oil and gas sector. Sadly, the misapplication of expatriate quota is the norm in many sectors of the Nigerian economy.  The concern is not just that Nigerians are denied the available opportunities in these areas, but that many companies exceed their legitimate quota. From the deployment of unqualified personnel to the re-designation of individuals in a manner not consistent

with their training and skills to giving them undeserved positions, expatriate quota has become a serious issue of concern.  

Much more rampant are cases of foreign firms that bring in all category of personnel, from cleaners, drivers to specialised skills personnel, all in the name of using the expatriate quota. Meanwhile, the law provides  for such skills and capacities  only when they are unavailable or may be difficult to source locally. The labour and trade unions that should pay attention to this problem are busy fighting government policies. For instance, there are repeatedly reported cases of companies in the food and beverages industries engaging technicians and paying them as engineers. This is in addition to placing them over their professional superiors as supervisors and bosses, simply because the latter are Nigerians.

This is in spite of the fact that the nation faces a frightening youth bulge. This is in addition to graduate unemployment and a prevailing national economic downturn. These are not the times for abuses that impact directly and visibly on the nation’s ability to deal with routine matters of human capital deployment for national development. This is unacceptable even at the best of times.  In this regard, the subsisting abuse of expatriate quota should be viewed as a serious economic crime and treated as such by the relevant authorities. 

One of the issues thrown up by the recent internal management problem within Seplat Energy Plc is the abuse of expatriate quota by many companies, especially in the oil and gas sector. Although the federal  government discontinued the suit filed against Seplat Energy Plc and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Roger Brown for allegedly breaching the extant provisions of the Immigration Act, 2015, the incident raised some initial concerns.

While the federal government must go beyond the oil and gas sector in dealing with this issue, we urge that the authorities also make public details of what categories of skills that are not covered by the expatriate quota, what constitutes abuse of such expatriate quota and what long and short-term penalties may apply in cases of default. These measures will spread awareness about the abuse and help in curbing it across all sectors of our national  economy.