‘We Need Expats’
More expatriates are expected to join the ranks at Fiji’s oldest and only operating gold producer, as the company battles to maintain status quo in the midst of major brain drain concerns.
And the Government is expected to find ways of supporting Vatukoula Gold Mines Limited’s continued operations.
With over 80 years of mining, the mines’ workforce is an estimated 1300. The livelihoods of thousands more remain heavily dependent on its continuity.
The concerns of the mines were recently relayed to Minister for Mineral Resources, Filimoni Vosarogo,
during his initial site visit earlier this month.
“VGML has been facing many challenges, and needs the support of the Government,” Mr Ian said. “We have lost many highly qualified engineers and accountants to Australia and New Zealand.”
While local universities have launched training for mining programmes as a long term measure of retention for the vicious cycle, the human resource benefits of the scheme will kick in later.
“It takes many years before the program can generate an impact on the human resources pool of technical personnel,” Mr Ian said.
In the meantime, the company needs to hire mining engineers from abroad.
The processes involved in securing
employment visas are lengthy and time consuming, Mr Ian said. “In the short term for the next three to five years, we need expats,”
he said.
Mr Vosarogo praised the resilience of the mine, given its economic contribution, and said he would look
into measures that could improve regulatory approval processes.