The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has queried the high influx of Indians in the oil and gas industry in the country.
PENGASSAN’s President, Mr Festus Osifo said Indians are taking over low-level jobs in the sector in blatant abuse of the expatriate quota system.
Osifo raised the concern at the closing of the 3rd edition of the three-day Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja on Friday.
The theme of the summit is: “The Future of Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry: Energy Mix, Energy Security, Artificial Intelligence, Divestment, and Crude Oil Theft”.
Osifo said that the increasing dominance of expatriates, particularly Indian nationals in the sector, was alarming.
“They are taking over low-level jobs, which is 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.
“In fact, up to vulcanizers, you have Indians carrying out such low jobs and functions in all their plants as operators and some are even gatekeeping operators,”he said.
Osifo said that the union has been engaging the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to address the issue but to no avail.
According to him, “today Nigerians are looking for jobs, our graduates who are out from the universities are looking for work to do.
“But we keep granting expatriate quotas to these Indian companies and they have abused it,” he said.
He alleged that the companies have manipulated the system by registering numerous Shell companies to facilitate the influx of expatriates.
He said that they have registered over 200