FG plans end to oil industry skill gap

The Federal Government yesterday declared plans to end in-country skill gap rocking the Nigeria oil and gas industry.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which said this, according to a statement, announced plans to collaborate with Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) to boost the number of Nigerians who were core professionals in the industry.

Speaking through its Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, the corporation said it would continue to work with OGTAN using the guidelines of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to bridge the skill gap.

“We do need to work for our country because the human resource in Nigeria is limitless. We in the NNPC are determined to promote Nigerian content and we will do this by leading by example. Training and retraining in-country is cheaper, more effective and very conducive,” Mallam Kyari was quoted to have quipped.

To shore up the skill pool in the oil and gas industry, NNPC, the statement issued by Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Samson Makoji, stated that the oil and gas industry was a sector that was driven by high level skills, maintaining that training and retraining of workers in the industry must be sustained to ensure sectoral healthy competition.

Kyari said this when he received President of OGTAN, Dr. Mayowa Afe, at his office when the OGTAN leadership paid a business visit to the NNPC Towers in Abuja.

The NNPC GMD noted that the corporation was a major contributor to the activities of OGTAN, assuring that the partnership would continue to grow for the benefit of the nation’s oil and gas industry.

Earlier, OGTAN President, Afe averred that like China and India, Nigeria should be able to export her abundant human capital to other parts of the world, saying the association would work with the NNPC to raise the bar for education and training, particularly in the oil and gas sector.

He described Kyari as a well-known geologist, who championed transparency, assuring him that OGTAN would cooperate with his management to ensure that he succeeds in his onerous task of adding value to the nation’s abundant hydrocarbon resources.

SOURCE: newtelegraph.ng