Dr. Clement Illoh, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity is due to launch a Code of Conduct for Private Employment Agencies in Nigeria, at the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA).

A statement by the Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria (HuCaPAN), the umbrella body of registered/licenced recruiters in Nigeria, said the association was very passionate about the Code of Conduct, as among other reasons, that it would help to self-regulate every licensed private employment agency/labour contractor in Nigeria.

In separate news the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, in Abuja described as unacceptable the recruitment of foreign labour by indigenous construction firms.

Mr. Onolememen spoke when he received Kashim Ali, the President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) in his office. He said the development had left many Nigerian youth jobless.

Mr. Onolememen said the Ministry would collaborate with COREN to address the problem, adding that efforts were on to train youths to handle the jobs being done by their foreign counterparts. He said the ministry was working toward curbing the act of employing foreign labour on construction sites in the country by training youth to do those jobs.

 “The dearth of skills in the country today cannot be explained; one begins to wonder what has happened to the engineering regulatory agencies in the country,” he said.

“When you walk the length and breadth of most of our project sites in this country, it is amazing to find out that skilled workers usually are sourced from other countries.

“As a government, we are determined to stamp out this and in doing that, we need to partner with COREN so as to find ways out of that quagmire because for us, it is totally unacceptable.’’

The minister urged COREN to put adequate measures in place to check “quackery” in the profession as well as sanction erring engineers.