By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige has revealed that Nigeria is set to sign some bilateral agreements on employment with the Republic of Qatar and with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Ngige who spoke to State House Correspondent on Thursday after a closed door meeting with President Buhari at Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the bilateral agreements with Qatar and UAE will ensure that Nigerian migrants can get decent work manner and to become legal resident aliens wherever they go, especially in the UAE.
Explaining further on the bilateral agreements and other issues that brought him to see the President he said: “You know that my mandates, Labour, industrial disputes is one of the major pillars of what we are doing, and the national milieu is always boiling and we try as much as possible to make it calm so that we can have productivity of work in all the other areas”.
“If we allow industrial disputes all over, there’ll be no road construction, there’ll be no building, there’ll be no agriculture, there will be no services in the hospitals, none in the educational sector. So, we have some emerging issues that are both of national and internationalization importance and local.
“Internationally, we have some bilateral agreements on employment with the Republic of Qatar and with the UAE. That of Qatar is ready for us to sign the bilateral agreements. So, I’ve come to brief Mr. President on that. We want to use it to formalize Labour migration policy, so that Nigerians who are there, about 7,000 of them, in different spheres of work, will be assured of decent work”.
“We have the agreement that will specify what kind of work they do protection for them and protection for even their employers over there. So that is online, I had to brief Mr. President because the agreement is nearing maturation and ratification”.
“We go to UAE it’s also same, there level components that are to be done by foreigners, we now have them, we now want to use that information now, to go into our vocational training centers so that our people can also be trained and be exported in a civilized manner, in a decent work manner, to become legal resident aliens wherever they go, especially in the UAE. So that is on the international front”.
