Nigerian lawmaker, Senator Adams Oshiomhole has accused the Ministry of Interior of allowing foreign prisoners to steal jobs meant for Nigerian citizens.
Oshiomhole, who is the Chairman of the National Assembly’s Joint Committee on Interior made the allegation during the committee session on the Ministry’s budgetary revenue projections on expatriate quotas and marriage.
The lawmaker was interrogating a presentation by the Minister of Interior Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo that the ministry surpassed its budgetary revenue projections on expatriate quotas and marriage in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.
“I told the Minister that while it is heartwarming that the Ministry surpassed its revenue targets on issuance of expatriates quotas but the policy is giving room for expatriates to steal jobs meant for Nigerians in Nigeria”, he said.
Oshiomhole tasked the Ministry of Interior to regulate the issuance of the quotas because he has “on good authority that prisoners from foreign land are working in Nigeria as construction workers”.
He said:”This is even different from the age long fraud the oil companies have been carrying out in the country through the policy of expatriate quotas by making our own qualified engineers to work under foreign technicians.
“Many non Nigerians are in the country, some of them live inside containers. I even believe and dare to say that there are foreign prisoners who are working in Nigeria. They were shipped to our country to serve their prison terms.
“They were being paid according to their country’s minimum wage by the construction industry that brought them. I don’t want to mention the company’s name but if I am provoked, I will mention them.
“Honourable Minister, this is a serious issue, prisoners are not expected to work in their countries if the product or whatever they engage in is meant to be exported”, he said.
But reacting , the Minister of Interior assured the committee members that the Ministry had already come up with a project for job protection for Nigerians.
The project, according to him, is Expatriate Employee Network (EEN) primarily aimed to safeguard jobs meant for Nigerians from being stolen by expatriates and also preventing expatriate workers from evading tax payment in Nigeria.
Tunji – Ojo specifically submitted to the committee that in 2023, while N600 Million was targeted as revenue to be generated from issuance of expatriate quotas to deserving foreign firms in the country, N1.195 billion , as at October 31, 2023 , generated from it.
“Aside the projected revenue from expatriate quotas that had been surpassed by about N600m extra , the N380 Million projected revenue from marriage, has also been surpassed by over 500 Million with N892.774 million realized as at October 31, 2023 “, he said.
