Yemeni oil sector to ‘Yemenize’ [Archives:2006/941/Business & Economy]
Abdulalem Al-Shara'bi
All developing countries practically suffer grave shortages in well-trained and highly skilled technical personnel in various industrial areas, particularly the oil industry. As a developing country, Yemen also suffers this shortage in highly qualified oil industry personnel.
Yemen's government has adopted a program to 'Yemenize' its oil sector, claiming it is an important step on the road to implementing the strategy to limit poverty and unemployment, as it aims to provide job opportunities for unemployed Yemeni skills. The purpose is to replace foreign personnel with Yemenis skilled in this field, especially since foreign personnel receive wages and salaries many times higher than what is paid to Yemeni employees.
Foreign firms working in Yemen's oil sector follow a policy of recruiting the largest possible number of foreign employees, especially from their own countries, to get as many privileges as possible. On the other hand is Yemen's policy of trying to recruit the maximum number of its citizens in this field, leading to the goal of 'Yemenization.'
In line with this policy, the Ministry of Oil has begun supporting the plan by prescribing immediate solutions to problems and hindrances blocking the Yemenization progress by curbing mediation and nepotism followed in recruiting Yemeni citizens in foreign firms, Dr. Mohammed Saleh Muqbil, director-general of the ministry's Yemenization project, said.
Muqbil said the importance of Yemenization is based on offering support for the strategy to limit poverty and unemployment by replacing foreign personnel with qualified Yemeni personnel. He pointed out that unemployment mainly is attributed to the nonexistence of enough light and heavy industries in Yemen, which could contribute to solving a large part of the unemployment problem.
Moreover, Muqbil does not place the blame for unemployment mainly on the government for not employing citizens in government sectors. To the contrary, he attributes the problem to piling and surplus numbers of employees in government institutions and not planning for employment, which causes inflation in employee numbers.
Regarding limited job opportunities available to Yemenis in foreign oil firms operating in Yemen, he attributed this to international criteria and specifications that should be available especially for oil industry recruitment. Labor in such firms mainly is based on expertise and skills.
Muqbil assented that foreign firms do not help solve the unemployment problem, as they are economic-oriented and mostly uninterested in social factors or unemployment problems as much as they are interested in experienced personnel that will guarantee full effectiveness and success of their operation's oil production progress.
Regarding the program the Yemeni oil company adopted to train and qualify Yemeni oil sector personnel, engineer Khalid Khairat, managing director of training and qualification, affirmed that training and qualifying Yemeni personnel is a strategic objective of the oil ministry.
The training process is considered an essential condition and a significant step toward Yemenization, indicating that the ministry, in cooperation with the Yemeni oil company, has managed to train and qualify large numbers of its employees in various technical, administrative and financial areas in an effort to depend on qualified Yemeni skills.
Unemployed engineer Ahmed Abdul Rahman, a graduate from oil engineering, pointed out that there are Yemeni personnel with high efficiency qualified to replace foreign personnel working in the oil sector. He said implementing the Yemenization program still is moving very slowly, noting that he has not seen serious steps in this direction.
Rahman said even in the training and qualification process, nepotism plays an important role via recommendations and mediations in favor of those applying for training, usually made by influential individuals and senior officials.
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