Home Finance & Economy NEPZA mulls 60% of jobs for host communities of free trade zones

NEPZA mulls 60% of jobs for host communities of free trade zones

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Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) says plans are in place to ensure that its policy on allocation of 60 per cent jobs in Free Trade Zones in the country to host communities is fully implemented.

Acting Managing Director of NEPZA, Bitrus Dawuk, made this known in Abuja while reacting to the recent labour crisis at Ogun-Guandong Free Zone, Igbesa, Ogun State.

He said the industrial dispute between the workers and management of Goodwin Ceramic Free Zone Enterprise (FZE) located in the Zone, was necessitated by the extension of lockdown by the government to curtail the spread of coronavirus pandemic, which prompted several workers of the Enterprise mostly from the North- East demanding for additional payment to stay or vacate the Zone.

While saying despite the pleas by the Zone’s management and security agencies that the workers should stay in order not to expose themselves to the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial payment provided for them to cater for their needs, Dawuk said such appeals landed on deaf ears.

Dawuk expressed delight that the labour crisis has been resolved despite wrong accounts from some media said that it was during the incident that the Authority discovered that its policy on 60 per cent recruitment of people from the catchment area was not fully enforced by the Free Zone Enterprise.

“Until this dispute, it was not obvious that more than 80 per cent of the workers of the Enterprise of Ogun-Guandong Free Zone was not from the catchment area. The current Resident Zone Administrator said he inherited the problem when he assumed duty in December 2019 after the retirement of the immediate past Resident Zone Administrator.

“The Authority is already putting a mechanism and template to redress the situation to ensure that youth within the vicinity and location of any Zone in the country regulated by the Authority are given 60percent of all job slots while 40percent will be distributed to other parts of the country,”  he said.

It was, however, gathered that the zone management representative of Goodwin Ceramic Free Zone Enterprise said the enterprise’s decision to engage workers from other parts of the country is due to the fact that indigenes of the host community most of the times are either not willing to take up available jobs or not committed to doing it.

He said most people in the catchment area of the Zone often considered available jobs as menial and prefer more skilled jobs that are not usually available.

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