Stakeholders to reduce expatriates, increase mining contribution to GDP

A new partnership between the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the University of Abuja is aiming to address the skills gap in the energy sector in the country thereby reducing the number of expatriates in the country.

Alongside other sectors, the development is also aiming to bridge the gap between academia and the industry, especially aiding the growth of the solid mineral sector in the country.

Under the plan, skilled workforce, business and educational institutions that would preserve the nation’s competitiveness and economic strength in response to a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world will be developed.

Speaking in Abuja yesterday, at the University of Abuja and ACCI day, Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Abdul-Rasheed Na’allah said there was need to create a system that would ensure the country’s professors, standing at about 11,900 as at 2019 to align with sectors of the economy and add meaningfully towards turning around the resources of the country.

According to him, the academic experts have experience across board and could help the country in various sectors, especially in geology and mining, ensuring that the government wouldn’t need to hire people to take some work in the industry.

“We have minerals on our land, instead of only having academic programmes, we can have Industries that can help national development,” Na’allah said.

According to him, there must be a process to critically assess the professors across the university and ensure that the academic achievement doesn’t become a mere title.

President of ACCI, Dr. Al-Mujtaba Abubakar said the chamber and the university had agreed to partner in the areas of research, training, capacity building and continuing education, workshops and conferences, executive and regular MBAs, skills development, technology and knowledge transfer, among others.

According to him, there was a need to upgrade the relationship from just MoU to legal partnership across investment related fields.

Director General of the chamber, Victoria Akai noted that concentrating on development research remained sacrosanct for the solid mineral sector in the country.

According to her, while the chamber is in partnership with the mining chamber, there was a need for proper data to grow the sector’s contribution to the economy.