50% local staff must for firms competing for oil & gas tenders

Ubaidillah Masli
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Wednesday, December 14, 2011

New directive next year to boost jobs for Bruneians

A NEW directive to be introduced next year will stipulate, as a pre-requisite for all companies competing for a tender in the oil and gas industry, to have at least half of their employees Bruneians, the Minister of Energy at the Prime Minister's Office said yesterday.

Dubbed the Local Business Development (LBD) framework, the move to be launched "early next year" is aimed at boosting the employment of Bruneians in an industry largely dominated by "guest workers".

"They have to show that they are serious about employing Bruneians," Pehin Datu Singamanteri Colonel (Rtd) Dato Seri Setia Hj Mohd Yasmin Hj Umar said. "If you don't have 50 per cent (Bruneians under your employment), you cannot apply for the tender," the minister told The Brunei Times yesterday.

The framework will also call for greater transparency in the conditions of employment of locals, "like fixed wages for example", he added.

The 50 per cent quota, meanwhile, will be increased to 70 per cent over a period of five years, the minister said.

At present, such a quota was not a requirement with Pehin Dato Hj Mohd Yasmin citing some companies employing 40 per cent, or as low as 20 per cent Bruneians in the marine-based sectors.

The initiative was in line with the target to achieve 80 per cent local employment, or 5,000 professional and 35,000 skilled and semi-skilled Bruneian workers in the energy sector by 2035. The sector currently offers roughly 15,000 posts, with about 40 per cent filled by local employees and the remaining jobs to foreign nationals or as he referred to as "guest workers".

The energy minister opened yesterday a jobs fair aimed at facilitating the recruitment of more than 1,000 locals in the sector, also mentioned the introduction of another initiative that will "level the playing field" for companies and which will tie in with the LBD framework.

"We are introducing a new regulatory framework that will create a more conducive environment for local companies to be more genuinely involved in the oil and gas sector and to motivate them to employ more Bruneians," the minister said in his remarks.

The framework will distinguish companies according to their level of capacity, restricting "high value" vendors from competing for tenders below their capacity, thus giving greater opportunities to small and medium enterprises to compete.

"There should not be any monopoly," Pehin Dato Hj Mohd Yasmin said.

"We do not want companies that are doing high tech but then are also doing catering, cleaning office or car wash, for example."

Dipetik dari - The Brunei Times