The Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association (CCESSA) has drawn the Federal Government’s attention to the challenges facing construction workers.
In a statement by its National President, Comrade Isaac Egbuhara, the union said there is a need for the government to pay closer attention to activities in the industry, especially when the unemployment rate in the country is very high.
Buttressing his views on the plight of workers in the sector, Egbuhara said:“Labour in the Construction Industry is constituted by two unions; Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association (CCESSA) and the National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Woodworkers (NUCECFWW), representing the interest of the senior and junior workers respectively.
“We believe that any reform in the industry that fails to take cognisance of the roles of labour (CCESSA and UNCECFWW) and carry them along will surely not be able to achieve the desired or expected results.”
He said it is important to note that the next in number of active employment to civil service (government employees), is the construction industry, adding that in order to harness the employment potential in the industry, the government needs to have a rethink about the industry by paying closer attention to its activities.
Some of the challenges highlighted by the labour leader cut across non-payment of debt, abuse of employment of foreigners, organisational structure, and casualisation, contract staffing and outsourcing and proliferation of unions in the industry.
On the issue of non-payment of debt facing the industry, the labour leader flayed the three tiers of government for delaying payments on projects constructed for them by its affiliate construction companies.
He said: “Although there is obvious improvement over the past three years, non-payment of debt owed to the construction companies by the Federal, state and local governments, has been one of the major challenges in the Industry.”
He said with the efforts made to reduce the huge debts owed to the various companies, little effect has been achieved, especially when the very high interest rate charged by the banks are considered.
Egbugara added that the much paid is swallowed in servicing loans repayment to the banks, and warned that until conscious efforts are made to encourage the repositioning of the construction industry to play its role of stimulating the economy. Employment generation, he said, may also continue in Nigeria.
On expatriates, he said Nigeria parades a large stock of well-trained engineers, architects, surveyors, geologists, project managers and other professionals. “But multinational companies operating in this country have continued to import their nationals as expatriates,”he said.
Egbugara emphasised that majority of the construction companies have no organisational structure, and that abnormally has continued to deny Nigerians clear career path and opportunity to grow, become project managers and directors of such companies.
He urged the government to make it mandatory for companies to present organisational structure as pre-requisite for award of contracts and closely monitor them.
He noted that the gap between the expatriates and their senior Nigerian counterparts is too wide. This, he said, can be seen from their salaries and other incentives, and disclosed that the most highly paid senior staff still earns far lower than the least paid expatriate.
On casualisation, he said the harrowing experience Nigerians go through in the hands of their employers in the name of casualisation is better imagined than experienced.
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