Foreign experts working in oil and gas firms should be certified

Kardaya, Deputy Chairman of BPMIGAS, the government?s agency responsible for upstream oil and gas activities, has called on the need of issuing a certification for foreign experts working in the country?s oil and gas companies, Suara Pembaruan reported on Monday.

Speaking at a discussion forum held by the association of Indonesian mining and oil and gas experts IATMI in Palembang on Thursday, Kardaya said that the certification was important to ensure that the foreign experts? expertise would really suit the oil and companies? needs.

According to him, many experts assigned in oil and gas companies did not really meet the qualification required for their jobs. This has caused inefficiency because most of the experts were highly paid. "We therefore need to formulate a right certification for such foreign experts. The certification could be issued by a professional organization such as IATAMI in cooperation with the government," he added.

"At present, the government was only given a copy of the assigned experts? curriculum vitae. We don?t know whether the information in the CV is true or not," he said. He added that Japan and Australia had strictly issued such a certification so that the presence of the foreign experts could be limited to the actual needs of the companies there. (*)