NIGERIA Labour Congress (NLC) in Lagos, has cried out against anti-development practices at the ongoing Dangote Group refinery project.
The union, which expressed its displeasure over the use of foreigners at the expense of Nigerians, stated that it was “worrying and unwholesome labour practices currently going on in the Dangote group’s Refinery Project under construction in Lekki, Lagos for your kind attention and intervention.”
Further NLC said it was “shocking revelation through various investigations and corroboration by our affiliate that the handlers of the Dangote refinery project under construction are not employing Nigerian Fitters and other qualified Nigerian artisans in the execution of their work and in bringing the project on stream.”
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In a statement by the Acting General Secretary Comrade Onyeka Chris, NLC stressed that “Our investigations show that rather foreigners in their hundreds are brought in to do the job Nigerian Fitters and Welders are perfectly competent and eminently qualified to do by all standards.
“We know that Nigerian Fitters were fully involved in the construction of the four refineries Nigeria have today and there is nothing new that they cannot do in this one owned by Dangote group of companies that would warrant their exclusion especially at this time of hash economic circumstances with increasing mass unemployment.”
In addition Chris pointed out, the union have petitioned the Secretary, Government of the Federation, Asokoro District, Abuja, through: Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige, The Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Federal Secretariat Complex, Wuse Abuja, over the development.
The Federal Government through the federal Ministry of Labour ought to act quickly and decisively in this matter to save Nigerian jobs for Nigerians and stop the haemorrhaging of our foreign exchange resources as the foreign workers are also paid in foreign currencies. Dangote group must expel the foreign workers and replace them immediately with Nigerian workers Fitters and Welders and other artisans of their choice.