Interior Ministry threatens to sanction foreign firms which fail to employ Nigerians as deputies

The Ministry of Interior has disclosed that companies employing expatriates without Nigerians serving as their understudies run the possibility of a monthly punishment of N3 million.

Additionally, any company in the nation will be fined N3 million for failing to renew its expatriate quota or submit its expatriate monthly returns.

The updated manual on expatriate quota administration, published on Sunday, contains these new rules.

A three-year prison sentence, a N2 million fine, or both are imposed for falsifying information on either expatriate quota, according to the document.

It partly reads, “Some of the sanctions and penalties related to offences in expatriate quota are detailed below:

“Failure to renew expatriate quota within the stipulated time. This attracts a fine of N3m. Failure to engage Nigerian employees to understudy expatriate employees attracts a fine of N3m for each month that a position is occupied by an expatriate without another understudy. Submitting forged information in the monthly expatriate quota.

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“The author of the information is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of three years or a fine of N2m or both and where a corporate body is found guilty in this offence, it is liable to a fine of N5m and the court may issue an order to wind up the body.”

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregebesola, had disclosed that some foreign companies in the country were violating the expatriate quota policy.

He also pledged to publish their names soon and sanction them accordingly.

He said, “The task force inaugurated in December 2020 has since been carrying out its assignment in all the geopolitical zones of the country. The report of the companies that have not complied with the rules will be published in due time and they will be sanctioned.’’

“All these measures became imperative in view of abuses and gross violations of the expatriate quota policies by foreign investors and Nigerian companies alike. Before now, I have appealed to foreign companies, nationals, and their governments to begin to respect our laws and warned them that it will no longer be business as usual.”

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