The federal government is set to begin a full audit of foreigners working on all project sites nationwide, if a hint by president Muhamadu Buhari is anything to go by.
The President who disclosed this at the 60th Anniversary of the Nigerian Society of Engineers at the weekend in Abuja added that the audit will go beyond the Works and Housing sectors.
NSE’s 2018 National Engineering Conference and Annual General Meeting began yesterday.
Buhari, who was represented by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, said, “The Executive Order Number 5 issued earlier this year is one step towards ensuring that in the short term, the economic benefits of our investments in infrastructure are maximized for the benefit of Nigerians. The implementation committee of ministers set up to ensure compliance has already started work.
“Therefore, while we have taken loans from overseas to execute some of these projects, we did not sign away the rights of Nigerians to benefit foreigners. I am happy to inform you that the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing conducted a snap audit of 77 works construction sites and 50 housing sites to ascertain the number of foreigners employed on those sites and whether they have work permits on the work they are undertaking.”
He added, “The report shows that first, there are 8,950 workers on those 77 works project sites, out of which 227 are foreigners and 8,723 are Nigerians. On the housing side, the inception report shows that we have 51,360 workers and no foreigner was found working on those sites.”
On his part, NSE President, Adekunle Mokuolu, applauded the President’s courage in giving Nigerians the Executive Order 5.
“It is important that I mention here again that the NSE considers the Executive Order 5 which is for planning and execution of projects, promotion of Nigerian content in contracts and science, engineering and technology, as a call to action for Nigerian engineers.”
