By Favour Nnabugwu

Indigenous constructions companies in Nigeria have been warned to desist from recruiting foreign labourers as this is against the tenets of building local capacities.

The Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, who described the situation as unacceptable when he received Kashim Ali, the President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria ,COREN in his office last weekend, lamented that the development had left many Nigerian youth jobless.

Mr. Onolememen said the Ministry would collaborate with COREN to address the problem, adding that efforts were on to train youths to handle the jobs being done by their foreign counterparts. He said the ministry is working toward curbing the act of employing foreign labour on construction sites in the country by training youth to do those jobs.

“We found out that skilled workers are sourced outside the country. This is not acceptable to us. If we trained the requisite manpower, we will bridge the gab and be able to employ millions of Nigerian youths in this country”

He said that to achieve the objective, the Students Industrial Training programme in Engineering skills would be enhanced as it was the key to the realisation of the transformation agenda. He said that when the requisite manpower is trained, it would lead to the employment of millions of youths in the country.

To this end, the minister said that the Ministry has revived its training centres across the country to train enough technicians to fill the skill gap in construction sites in the country.

The minister urged COREN to put adequate measures in place to check quackery in the profession as well as sanction erring engineers.

He advised the body to start exploring alternative ways of sustaining as moves were on by the Federal government to hands off its funding of regulatory bodies in the country.

“Federal Government cannot continue to pay all the bills alone, there must be some form of sustenance on you part and other regulatory bodies. Start looking forward to making the COREN self –sustaining; it will enable the council to carry out its duties without fear or favour”

He advised the body to explore Public Private Partnership, PPP in full or in part as a means developing  its infrastructural facilities rather than waiting now and then on the federal government for funding.

Earlier, Mr. Ali, the President of COREN, had said that one of the greatest challenges of the council was the issue of quacks in the profession. He said that there was need for the Council to establish its presence in all the states to curb quackery in the profession.

Ali further sought the ministry’s financial support of Students Industrial Training Scheme in Engineering, SITSIE which he said has not taken off in the past 15 years due to huge financial investment involved in the programme.