FG to ban sales of employment scratch cards - To stop abuse of job seekers, unfair labour practices - Employment adverts to be censored

Ayo Lawal Gbenoba, updated: Wednesday 03-06-2009

Adetokunbo Kayode,
Labour MinisterTHE Minister of Labour, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode has made a proposal that will ensure that all employment advertisements must be approved and authenticated by the Federal Government before they are released or printed in the news media.

This, according to the minister, is to enable the government have the necessary information on the advertisements, especially the dossier of their sponsors.

The proposal was made to the national stakeholders meeting of the National Electronic Labour Exchange (nelex), an electronic platform that enables job seekers and employers of labour to meet online and designed to push the frontiers of the Ministry’s Public Employments Agencies to new levels.

Prince Kayode also proposed that every government Ministries, Departments and Agencies and state governments must declare their employment vacancies through nelex and employment exchanges, while all employment advertisement must be posted on the web sites of nelex 48 hours before they are run in any media.

The minister pointed out that he proposed these to the stakeholders for their consideration in order to protect Nigerian youths who are daily subjected to all the pains, abuses and being cheated while looking for jobs, as well as ameliorating their sufferings.

He stated that the high unemployment and underemployment situations also led to the proliferation of the Private Employment Agencies (PEAs) some of which are incompetent, fake and faceless and being run by people who have no business doing so.

He pointed out that some unscrupulous organisations adopted the use of internet to abuse job seekers and further increase their pains, adding that some of the experiences they go through include: personal abuse, especially the ladies, denial of their fundamental human and labour rights, setting of unrealistic targets for those employed resulting in employees using all sorts of unethical and unorthodox methods to achieve those targets, duping of unsuspecting job seekers through sales of employment scratch cards even by some government agencies.

“more worrisome is the fact that our banks in connivance with government agencies have perfected the sales of employment scratch cards as a way of creating or making fast and easy money for their faceless principals,” Price Adetokunbo said.

He stated that some of these organisations also involved in perpetuation of child labour, smuggling and trafficking in persons, adding that in reaction to these ugly developments and as provided by the extant Labour Act Cap 198 and the ILO Conventions, the Ministry of Labour adopted certain steps to react positively to the developments to check the excesses of the PEAs, protect job seekers and check the prevalent unfair labour practices.

Oil and gas sector may lose 6,000 skilled workers by 2010 - ILO

Dr. Rilwan Lukman ,
Petroleum MinisterAMID a global downturn in employment in the oil and gas sector, senior representatives of governments, workers’ and employers’ organisations have met to discuss the state of industrial relations in the petroleum industry.

A new ILO report prepared for the meeting showed that employment in the oil and gas extraction subsector peaked at about four million jobs in 2004 and gradually declined to the level of about three million in 2006. Another 1.5 million workers is estimated to work in the world’s oil refining industry.
The report also forecasts a deficit of more than 6,000 skilled workers in the oil industry by 2010. “This is a conservative estimate. The reality could be worse. The shortage of skilled workers has its roots in the job cuts and lack of recruitment during the 1990s, perceived poor and dangerous working conditions, and is now aggravated by the current economic crisis”, says Ms. Elizabeth Tinoco, Director of the ILO’s Sectoral Activities Department (SECTOR).

According to the report, employment volatility in the sector led to a sustained increase in contract labour, which has become the norm in the oil industry and caused industrial relations problems. The report observes a “dualization” of the workforce into core and peripheral workers, and says that complex employment practices often result in making it difficult to determine the identity of the employer, sometimes affecting collective bargaining outcomes.

The report also notes important wage gaps, depending on occupation, skills and gender, and highlights occupational safety and health issues. It estimates that contract workers are twice as likely to be involved in a fatal accident as regular company employees and all workers aged between 21 and 35 years old are more prone to accidents than any other age group. It also says that despite the image of offshore work as more dangerous than onshore, the fatal accident rate onshore is almost twice as high as that offshore.

Regarding industrial relations, the ILO report observes that unionization levels are low and falling throughout the oil industry, although union membership is more widespread in the refining sector than in exploration and production. It is extremely low on offshore facilities and among women workers. The Meeting will discuss how to ensure that workers’ rights are respected.

The remedy to mass unemployment

By Olu A. Ogundoro

The disposition of governments and people of Nigeria to the quality specification standard and delivery of social services, including that of environmental quality, management and assurance, on one hand, and health, safety and security and environment on the other hand, including weights and measures, have not changed beyond meet-the-eye. If and where necessary changes have taken place in this area, and relics of colonisation and neocolonialism have not been allowed to co-exist, it is capable of providing a sure remedy to mass unemployment, especially to the graduates of higher institutions of learning.

Like high productivity in agriculture have been known to provoke manufacturing investments to drive different rates of economic growth, depending on the level of investment in the manufacturing industry, together with the alteration of the industrial skills of the labour, which in turn is dependent upon the level of education - both formal and informal, vocational and professional; academic and lower academic - so, also is the social service production and delivery given and obtained at high level of quality standard.

Agricultural revolution must precede industrial, service or intellectual revolution. Today, Nigeria has about 20 years backlog in succession planning. Any government that facilitates industrial and business growth is rendering another social service. In all these and more are where a civilian government remedy mass unemployment. But where such social services are not delivered, we have mass under-productivity, under-employment, unfulfilled promises, dashed hopes, capital frustrations, and non-unleashing of the economic potentials of the larger percentage of the working age group continue to rise. Then, there is over-reliance on crude oil spills while public interest degenerates into private and self-interest of a dimension synonymous to criminal riches and alternative crime avenues to make ends meet, especially among the majority of youths who are unemployed - with high dependency ratio. For instance, 1981 was the last year known in Nigerian history when mass government’s sponsorships for Ph D. studies had been found available, either locally or overseas. What a great dis-service to social service in higher education. If there were anything like it thereafter, they were scattered privileged ones in the work places, in the Federal Civil Service, Military and Para-military services. Yet Nigeria clamours for progress. China sends over 400,000 of its citizens annually for Msc/Ph.Ds to all countries of the world. Yet the NUC and the universities request for the Ph.D. they have not produced. It is shameful. For any nation to aspire to progress in the 20th and 21st centuries, about 13% of its working age group must be engaged in Research and Development (R & D). Well, it is no news that Nigeria has just 0.13% of its workforce in R&D. By extension, education, health, environment, agriculture, water, and other social services, create opportunities for jobs and thereby, becoming remedies to mass unemployment if facilitated.

In a develoing economy like Nigeria, the kind of privatization or downsizing Europe pursued is not the kind suitable for us. The merging of tasks, which obliterates sensitive skills acquisition, is not particularly suitable to Nigeria for Nigeria to develop industrially. Or, else Nigeria wobbles and fumbles. The size of our public service unnecessarily prunned down is injurious to our social order. For instance Great Britian has, up to 1975, not less than 10% of its whole population in public service, including the countries/LGAs. Such has, for 200 years before then, driven the economy from growth to growth. The council flats and works related provided private-sector workhands regular income, among other things.

Let us examine a few statistics to converge how well our social services have been allowed to dwindle, rot away and unstandardized, talkless of quality profile. We start with Education - in 80, 000 public schools in Nigeria, unfilled vacancies for the teaching of English Language is about 116,000, while that of Mathematics is about 112,000 (source: ANCOPSS, 2001) That is by 1980 UNESCO standard. Only about 30,000 English teachers are available in 80,000 secondary schools and 29,000 teachers for Mathematics. That is, there are no qualified English and Mathematics teachers in most of Nigeria’s secondary schools. It can be concluded then that unqualified hands take care of these subjects in most schools. Yet, 77% of WASSCE candidates fail Mathematics yearly, while over 70% fail English Language yearly. As for other subjects, it can be deduced that well over 50% of the required teachers are unavailable.

Making concrete moves to rectify the above shortfall in the education sector can provide a good remedy to mass unemployment in the country. Nigeria has no standard to adhere to in its education and yet, Mrs. Dora Akunyili and the FGN are going ahead re-branding what is not a brand already or even an acceptable product already; then we must all be fools fooling ourselves.

Similarly, for health; nurses, psychiatrists, opthalmologists, radiologists, surgeons of all classes - are insufficient. Yet no training and recruitment to shore up their numbers is in place. Not even any plan to facilitate such. Nigeria is supposed to have 200 opthalmologists to every 100,000 people. Today, it has less than 2 to 500,000; similarly for environment, food, water, agriculture and home management.

It is expected that a civilian government will have standard and respect one. For military and similar ones, self-interest and oppression are the order of their reigns. The challenges to remedy mass unemployment has always been there. Taxation cannot but bring back part of the money governments spend. Well, if these standards continue to be left unattended to and our social services delivery continue on the decline, Nigeria stands the risk of rubbishing itself in the comity of nations. Today, India has the best technology schools in the world. This same India, in 1963, got a few millions of pounds in donation, from Nigeria, when found in severe drought and food shortage. Nigeria is on the path to one. Let India wait to refund part of 1963’s donations. Or, South Africa, Namibia Botswana, etc. The desert is fast approaching, only higher education can fight desertification and environmental degradation, not oil money and avenues of fraud.

Ogundoro, is a consultant researcher