The Special Ministerial Task Force on Monitoring and Enforcement of Nigerian Expatriate Business Permit and Expatriate Quota Administration has threatened to sanction companies that fail to comply with the law guiding the employment of qualified Nigerians as an understudy for expatriates.

In order to ensure compliance with the rules, the task force has directed companies in the country to submit the Tax Identification Number, National Identification Numbers, phone numbers and email addresses of Nigerians understudying expatriates in their firms.

This decision was reached during the meeting of the task force with representatives of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), other professional bodies and officials of Ministry of Interior.

The chairman of the task force, Mr Bola Ilori, who made this disclosure at the end of the meeting emphasised that companies must submit the details of Nigerians understudying expatriates to verify their sincerity or otherwise to the policy or face heavy sanctions from the federal government.

According to Ilori, “every company must submit the details of Nigerians understudying expatriates in their organisations. They must submit the Tax Identification Number, National Identity Number of each Nigerian understudying expatriates in their companies.

“We have discovered that some of the companies are not sincere, they just want to keep renewing the permits of their expatriates at the detriment of Nigerians. We want to know whether they are circumventing the policy or they are adhering to it.

“The problem is that some of these companies are either not employing Nigerians at all or using school certificate holders to be understudying expatriates who are managers. How can a school certificate holder understudy a manager?

“What they are aiming at is that when the times comes for the expatriates to exit, the companies will say those understudying the expatriates do not have the capacity to become managers and you will agree with them. What that means is that Nigerians will not get to such positions and the expatriates will be there forever.

“When the exit time comes, they will say Nigerians understudying the expatriates do not have the capacity to step into such positions. How can a school cert holder succeed a manager when we have millions of Bsc holders and Masters degree holders. But they do that deliberately to defeat the purpose of the policy of the federal government,” Ilori remarked.

He maintained that the task force would do everything to ensure that Nigerians were no longer denied by foreigners and their collaborators the opportunities to work in companies in the country.