Jin Xiushan says contending with poisonous snakes can be part of everyday life on a construction site in Africa.

The 55-year-old is one of thousands of Chinese workers working in tough conditions building major infrastructure installations across Africa.He is the foreman for the China Gezhouba Group (Ghana) and currently overseeing a team of African workers building a major new water treatment plant at Kpone, about 75 kilometers north of Accra.

"We don't kill them (the snakes). They just go away. I like to study the wildlife here, including moles, crabs and the birdlife," he says.

Jin, who is from Xi'an and has worked in Africa for eight years, says he has a good working relationship with local African workers.

"They are also friends and very honest and straightforward. I have learned English from them and now I can also read books in English."

Whether Chinese companies use sufficient local labor and offer adequate training so Africans can advance to senior positions in their companies is often a contentious issue.

Huang Guanghui, who is project manager for Sinohydro on the 400-megawatt Bui hydroelectric project on the Black Volta River in Ghana, scheduled to be completed later this year, says finding skilled African workers can be a problem because the local construction market is undeveloped.

The company has recruited 150 technical staff from Pakistan to work alongside 1,800 Ghanaians and 300 Chinese.

"We have done a number of construction projects in Pakistan where there are very experienced workers and technicians. We have built a separate camp for the Pakistani workers and have even hired a Muslim chef to take care of their diet," he says.

Li Xiaohai, chairman of Sunon Asogli Power, which operates a power station near Accra, says graduates from local universities lack the work experience that Chinese graduates have.

"There are not a lot of power stations in Ghana, so they don't get the chance to be trained in real power plants. So we generally have to train them for a year after recruitment."

Many young Africans see their future with Chinese companies rather than with local or Western ones.

Eric Amankwah-Yeboah, 25, studied at a local university, and now works as a mechanical engineer in the control room of the power station operated by Sunon Asogli.

He says he hopes to get a three-month placement this year to work for his firm's parent company in Shenzhen.

"I hope and pray that I can be selected. Many of my friends at university want to go and now work for a Chinese company. It is where we see our future."

Georgina Ansah says one of the main problems in Ghana is that young graduates cannot find well-paid jobs.

The 33-year-old, who has a master's degree from the University of Birmingham in the UK, now works for China Geo-Engineering Company in Accra as a human resources assistant. "The Chinese companies coming in working on the big infrastructure projects are employing hundreds of Ghanaians," she says.

"They are also recruiting more Ghanaians to head office functions which has to be a positive step in the right direction. There might be some negative perceptions about the Chinese but they are basically putting back into society what they are taking out."

Contact the writers at [email protected] and [email protected]

(China Daily 01/11/2013 page5)