Nigeria: Aviation Sector and the Fight Against Expatriates Domination

December 16, 2011

There are complaints from the Nigerian aviation stakeholders that while the country’s professionals are unemployed, their foreign counterparts are gainfully employed in the industry. Martha Momoh reports.

There is no doubt the fact that aviation is a global business which means that the nationality of employees in the industry don’t actually count, but a situation where the number of foreigners working in Nigeria aviation industry dominate the sector calls for concerns. The current scenario is that there are more foreign pilots than Nigerian pilots. , This is a situation where indigenous pilots have decried, lamenting that Nigerian carriers have penchant for employing foreigners, while many Nigerians who are qualified to occupy the advertised positions are unemployed.

Despite the insistence of the Federal Government on the adherence to the expatriate quota, the Nigerian aviation industry is far from complying as most of the technical personnel of the airlines, like the pilots and aeronautic engineers are still being dominated by foreigners. Some of the unemployed Nigerian pilots, engineers in protest over influx of expatriates have warned that the incursion of expatriate pilots and engineers in the industry had rendered them jobless despite the fact that they are qualified personnel.

The federal Government has overtime in its regulations in the Nigerian Content Act said that Nigerians must first be given the opportunity to contest for jobs before advertising such positions to expatriates. They argue that it is only when Nigerians fail to apply or qualify that such positions should go to foreigners.

This, the government argues will ensure the efficient management of expatriate quota approvals and compliance under the Act. The policy is that for each of its operations, an operator or project promoter may retain a maximum of five per cent of management positions, as may be approved by the Board, as expatriate positions, to take care of investor interests. According to THISDAY investigations, the indigenous airlines have high percentage of expatriates on their payroll, while the few Nigerian personnel are underpaid and even relegated.

Why Expatriates are Needed

The industry’s watchdog, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) seems helpless to address the situation in spite of assurances from it, but the Director General of NCAA at a forum recently vowed to sanction any airline that fails to meet the mandatory training of local professionals in its programmes.

One the aviation stakeholders in the industry, Sheri Kyari said that it would be practically impossible for most of the airlines to comply with the rules on expatriate quota because of various reasons.

According to him, the inability of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) to train technical personnel like pilots and aeronautic engineers for about 10 years, the indifference of government at various levels, the demise of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways and the apathy shown on training of personnel by indigenous airlines contributed hugely to the dearth of capable technical personnel in the industry.

He said, “With a deeper research, by design of their profession, Aeronautic personnel are supposed to be in the factory where aircraft are being manufactured. Aeronautical engineers are destroying the future of the licensed aircraft maintenance engineers in the country.”

The Secretary General of National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Gideon Ogbuji said that expatriate quota in the country’s aviation sector was being abused virtually by all the commercial airlines. He explained that the labour law stipulated that in a situation where a company engages expatriates, Nigerians should understudy their performance. He noted that the reverse had been the case in the industry as indigenous personnel were not attached to them.

He pointed out that both the indigenous and foreign airlines operating into the country were guilty of the offence, adding that it was of recent that some of the airlines began to look inward and started training the indigenous people. On why the NCAA had not challenged the defaulting airlines, Ogbuji expressed that once the expatriates were cleared by the Nigerian Immigration Services (NIS) and qualified for the position, the regulatory body had no right to reject their engagements.

Govt Complacency

Ogbuji however blamed the government for the lack of concern shown in developing the industry, arguing that if each local government in the country is determined to train either a pilot or an engineer annually, the industry would have more than enough technical personnel.

He said, “It was equally being abused during the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime when anybody like the Chinese and Lebanese could just come in, but the law says where you have an expatriate, there must be a Nigerian to understand such a person, but it is being abused. Imagine a situation where an expatriate is a sales manager of an airline. Is there any sense in that? But they are there and some of them are even accountants when we have qualified accountants in Nigeria.

“If you look at the immigration laws, these are things that should be left for the indigenous professionals. We are not yet there and Nigeria is lacking because industry players don’t show interest in training professionals for the industry”, he said.

He said to train one pilot, one needs about N8 million and about N5 million and such funds are not for poor people, explaining that this was the reason why some people prefer bringing in expatriates from outside, but you cannot be left alone by the airlines.

“There was a time we dragged the airlines to the Immigration office; it was very disappointing. Even, the files of some of the so called expatriates could not be seen and we were there from morning till evening in Abuja. I think it is only in South African Airways, Egypt and Kenyan Airways that you can have Nigerians that are very close to sales manager. Other airlines are being occupied by expatriates and we still have unemployed youths here.”

He stated that the way out of the situation was for the indigenous airlines to show more commitments in training young Nigerians in the areas of engineering and other technical areas. He stressed that once they were fully engaged, there would be hope for the industry.

According Kyari, the airlines could not be blamed for not adhering to the expatriate quota because there was shortage of technical personnel in the industry.

He therefore advised that government should encourage the airlines to invest in human capacity, which he said would go a long way in improving the sector.

Modern Aircraft Technology

He noted that the vacuum created by NCAT when it could not embark on training of technical personnel for many years affected the industry negatively and expressed that some of the Nigerian pilots and engineers were not type rated on some of the aircraft model used by some of the airlines.

“If you look at the industry this time, you will discover that the areas where expatriates are needed are in flying and engineering, which is aircraft maintenance. These are areas that we need people to work whether they are Nigerians or expatriates. The question is, are there airlines that are adhering to the specified quota for expatriates? I will say for now, yes because there are shortage of pilots and engineers.

“For instance, you cannot ask a pilot that cannot take a command to take command; you will be putting people’s life in danger. So, when you don’t have pilots that can take command, you have to go out and search for pilots that will take command and the same thing with aircraft maintenance.

He, however, noted that the area with more expatriates in the industry was among the chartered operators, explaining that most of them operate wet-leased aircraft, which come with all its foreign crews and engineers.

He also blamed the Nigerian mentality for the engagement of expatriates by the airlines. “When you look at the commercial operators, they don’t have a choice than to bring in expatriates for maintenance because even in our own traditional environment, seeing foreigners handling equipment will boost their psychology.

“The number of expatriates we have in Air Nigeria is insignificant. For instance, if I give you an example, in our maintenance department, there are over 100 personnel there and we have about 10 expatriates, which i think is still good for the development of the industry.

“The foreign expatriates will one day leave, but the local workforce will remain to grow and develop the aviation industry. Nigeria Airways had done this before and this is what we are doing at Air Nigeria. It has also succeeded in Ethiopia Airways. It is with this spirit that we are refocusing and developing our airline. We can only achieve this with the commitment, dedication and loyalty of the employees.”

The Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Harold Demuren had disclosed in a forum that the Federal Government had mandated the authority to monitor and forward any erring airline that failed to meet the recommended expatriate quota to the Internal Affairs Ministry for appropriate sanction.

He said the directive was to ensure that indigenous professional capacity was enhanced for the development of the aviation industry as obtained in the allied sectors.

Demuren said if the industry is not well checked, in five years’ time the aviation sector would be taken over by foreign pilots and engineers and this was a dangerous signal not only for the aviation sector but also for the nation’s economy.

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