Salim al Aufi, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas, said getting finance for projects is not a problem, but admitted that the low level of oil prices is hurting the economy.
He said that there is no need for any knee-jerk reaction because it can be counterproductive as coming back to the normal situation may become difficult. He said companies are not shutting businesses and are still maintaining a good work level, but added that it will be a challenge for them to sustain if the situation persists.
Aufi said that time has come to revisit the labour laws as the ministry faced several challenges recently when it had to redeploy workers who were released from their contracts. “We were faced with lots of challenges as there is a huge disparity between those who were released from the existing contracts and the skills that were needed by the other companies.” He added, “Most of the workers released were from the categories of low-skilled or unskilled, while the market was expecting some skills. There was also a huge difference in the salary structure between the new and old jobs.” He also said the issue of minimum wage needs to be addressed as expatriates workers are available for lesser wages.
Aufi said the workers should be more accommodative and realistic when in terms of salaries and benefits when they get an opportunity to save their jobs. Saud al Salmi of PDO’s Worker’s Union told the Observer said that the union welcomed the fact that there is dialogue between the government, companies and the workers. He added that the union supports changes to laws that are not necessarily contributing to the economy and the individuals.
Top executives representing the oil and gas companies also felt some laws need to be revisited especially with regards to the skill development of the national workforce. “We should not waste a crisis,” was the message by one top executive. Moshin al Hadhrami of Schlumberger said that time has come to look at things with different lens and labour laws should be more flexible with regards to certain exemptions.
Source: OmanObserver