More jobs at the oil sector [Archives:2007/1027/Local News]
By: Moneer Al-Omari
SANA'A, Feb. 20 ) At the lunch of the Human Resource Forum, Yemen's Oil Ministry announced its intention last Sunday to yemenize workforce within the local and foreign companies working in Yemeni oil and gas sectors to reach 90 percent during the current year 2007. It further announced it will dig up 55 new oil wells.
This comes within the framework of the ministry's plan to replace foreign workers with Yemeni ones especially in those posts where Yemenis can assume responsibility. It is also modeled after Yemeni political leadership's demands to replace foreigners by Yemenis in all sectors in order to decrease unemployment rates. The political leadership further demands that foreigners' help should not be sought only in case there are no Yemenis to perform the defined task.
Built on earlier replacement experiences especially in Education Ministry which proved to be successful enough, other Yemeni sectors were tempted to make similar replacement of foreigners in order to create more opportunities for a large number of graduates and youth who are looking for jobs.
The lunch was attended by Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi who expressed his happiness over attending the forum and maintained Yemen does depend on oil revenues to run development wheel in the country and further fight unemployment and alleviate poverty.
Haddi also assured the political leadership provides all necessary facilitations and guarantees, together with required care and security atmosphere in order to bring investments into this important sector.
He further stressed the importance of qualifying Yemeni workforces to fit into labor market and asked the Oil Ministry to commit itself to transparency in its dealings with local and foreign companies engaged in oil and gas sectors.
He maintained that there should be coordination between Oil Ministry, Social Affairs Ministry and companies in order to avoid any ensuing problems.
For his part, Minister of Oil Khalid Mahfouz Bahah delivered speech in which he announced his ministry will excavate 55 oil wells during this year and further assured they will increase the percent of Yemeni workforce within foreign companies to 90 percent.
Bahah further declared his ministry would announce the fourth round of bidding for maritime sectors after it had finished contracting measures with companies who won the bidding during the third round of competition.
“We started a five-year ambitious strategy during 2006 and it has started to bring about positive results and we expect to achieve further successes over the coming period
