You either employ a Nigerian to do the big job or you pay extra to bring your foreigner to do it.
Nigeria has imposed a mandatory annual levy for organisations employing expat workers. ECOWAS countries are exempt from expatriate quotas.
They will be required to pay $15,000 (£12,000) for a director and $10,000 for other categories. The aim is to encourage foreign companies to employ more Nigerians.
It is also worth considering the perspective of African workers who pay significant amounts to travel and work in Western countries. This policy could potentially be seen as a form of reciprocity, where countries implement measures to protect their own workforce in response to similar policies in other countries.
Despite the ensuing social media outrage, If this is implemented properly without notorious bribes in play, then Nigeria would be heading into the right direction.
To some extent, this policy may foist some limitations on foreign investors especially those with low capital as well as some of them might prefer to work with their already trained expert rather than Nigerian potential trainees.
There is a widespread belief that investors like the Chinese would prefer paying the $15,000 rather than involving Nigerians in key roles or inviting them to the round table. Nonetheless, this policy is expected to make many of these organizations start teaching Nigerians on the Job or give Nigerians 6 months to 1 year on practical internship for the Jobs on the lower description roles.
Nigerians have good heads capable to man the positions of expat workers. And this policy has no different as companies in the UK pay the home office to enable them issue COS to employee from abroad including Nigerians. South Africa is implementing something similar to this.
But there’re loopholes for this policy not to be effectively implemented, there’s a possibility that What most of these foreign expatriates may do is to simply go and get a Nigerian passport and claim dual citizenship. Or get married to a Nigerian which is not a hard task to accomplish.
As the Tinubu led Nigerian government work ways into patching up the economic free fall, which has resulted in an imbroglio with Binance P2P services in Nigeria, the CBN says something isn’t right somewhere with these guys & they have questions to answer, this policy is another one geared in the right direction.
The high rate should help address the issue of medium to low skilled Chinese and Lebanese coming to Nigeria as ‘expatriates’ to operate cranes. The real concern is they will pay their way around this as immigration expatriate quota in Nigeria is a still considered a cesspit that needs a revamp.
Therefore, as this policy seems to be in line with the government’s efforts to prioritize the employment of Nigerians and reduce reliance on foreign workers. While it may help in achieving these objectives, it is important to ensure that it does not discourage foreign investment in the country or lead to a decrease in job opportunities overall.
Ultimately, it will be important for the government to monitor the implementation of this levy and assess its impact on the economy and job market to ensure that it is achieving its intended goals without causing unintended consequences.
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