Capacity Building: Hyundai Heavy Industries Sponsors Training of 80 Nigerians

By Solomon Elusoji

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), in collaboration with Dorman Long Engineering (DLE) Ltd, have graduated about 80 trainees from a workshop sponsored by Hyundai Heavy Industries, as part of the company’s restitution for contravening local laws.

Late last year, federal lawmakers found out that HHI had violated Section 33 of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act of 2010, which requires that companies should seek approval from the NCDMB before deploying expatriates. But the lawmakers discovered that HHI had brought in expatriates without valid papers to take jobs which could have been handled by Nigerians.

Subsequently, HHI, a client to Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), was directed to facilitate capacity building workshops for at least 105 Nigerians, through the NCDMB. DLE, a notable engineering firm in the country, emerged as training facilitators.

Speaking at the passing out ceremony for the graduates at a DLE facility in Lagos, the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, NCDMB, Mr. Tunde Adelana, who was represented by a NCDMB official, Adike Kopiam, noted that the idea of the training was to increase the skills of Nigeria’s young population.

The Chairman of DLE, Dr. Timi Austen-Peters, seconded the NCDMB chief’s point. “Government has done employers a favour, because this training boosts the trainees’ skill level,” he said, adding, “the more we can do this for our young people, the more employable they are; in order words, they become more attractive to employers.”

The group of 80 trainees were roughly divided into two, with one half taking a three month course in Non Destructive Testing, while the others took a three month course in Project Management. Meanwhile, the graduating trainees were only the Stream 1 batch, as a second stream of 80 trainees are set to commence courses in Health Safety and Environment (HSE) and Welding.

One of the graduating students, Abraham Marshall, is a graduate of Electrical Electronics from the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun. He was observing the mandatory National Youth Service Corps programme at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, when he got a call from NCDMB to attend the three month programme, after applying through the Board’s website. “I learnt a lot during my time here,” he said, “and I hope to put my knowledge to practise immediately I leave.”

 

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