THE government has asked local experts involved in the development of national strategic projects including gas and oil deals to always be ready and quick to learn and master skills and knowledge from foreign experts brought into the country to implement the projects.
The practice will help see more engagement of local experts, especially consultants and contractors in the development of the projects, thus enabling the government to cut expenditure caused by hiring foreign experts.
Labour Officer from the Prime Minister’s Office Ms Idda Moshi made the call here recently, saying the move will also help increase local participation in the implementation of the projects.
She said foreign workers always have time limit to stay in the country, insisting the need for the local experts to ensure they acquire skills and knowledge from their foreign counterparts.
Law requires foreign experts to have a succession plan for transitioning jobs to the local workers and for that matter, she said local experts should always be ready enough to grab the opportunity to learn and acquire skills and knowledge from foreign experts before the succession plan ends.
Ms Moshi was speaking during a visit by heads of unit and workers from the President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance) and Prime Minister’s Office at Mnazi Bay Gas Field and Madimba Gas Processing Plant in Mtwara Region recently.
Other workers were from the Immigration offices, National Economic Empowerment Council (NEEC) and Uongozi Institute.
The visit was organised by Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (PURA), to create awareness for the government institutions on oil and gas extraction activities managed by PURA.
PURA Head of Local Content and Stakeholders Engagement Mr Charles Nyangi said the move was aimed at ensuring smooth operation between the authority and the stakeholders in handling foreign workers in the gas and oil extraction activities.
“Some of the workers and heads of government institutions involved in this tour deal with issuance of work and residence permits and thus the visit makes it easier for them to understand and see the need to process the permits timely whenever they are needed,” he said.
Commenting on the awareness, Acting Director at the Department of Human Resource Management in the President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance) Dr Edith Rwiza said the visit helped them identify and understand the role of foreign experts in gas and oil extraction industry, towards ensuring they help build skills and knowledge for local experts.
“The visit here (Gas and oil extraction field) was to ensure the foreign workers, who are issued with work and residence permits as well as tax exemption adhere to the law that requires them to transfer knowledge and capacity development for local workers,” she said.
