A Guyanese company and three West African firms have formed a partnership with the aim of certifying persons with technical skillsets but who have no certification, along with training school dropouts to participate in the oil and gas sector
The company -West Africa South America (WASA) Alliance Incorporated, yesterday announced the partnership on the sidelines of the Guyana Energy Conference at the Marriott Hotel in Georgetown, with the principals underscoring human resource building that can be tangibly felt by locals.
“When you talk about the people being able to participate in the value chain of the oil and gas, the most important thing is the education. The education in oil and gas is very specific in terms of requirements and certifications. We are here to do that… working through global organisations,” Vice Chairman of the WASA Alliance, Yomi Balogun, said yesterday at a press conference.
“At the end of the day, it must be seen in the life of the people. As the president said, you must use your resources under the ground to develop the surface and the surface is the people,” he stressed.
The Vice Chairman noted that while the company will also be working with the University of Guyana and local technical institutions, it will also reach out to youths with skills that are not certified and have them do courses to bring them into world class certification while training those with no skillsets but who are passionate about learning.
“The most important thing is the future… we will be working with organisations that certify persons in the oil and gas sector; drilling organisations across the world and production organisations… we are here to ensure that Guyanese are able to participate in oil and gas and at the end of the day, bring value home,” he said.
“You must be able to get people to work, whether they have a formal education or not. The oil and gas industry is so much about formal education, it is about your ability to learn; a welder doesn’t necessarily have to get degrees and diplomas from universities. What is required are the competencies and the discipline and dexterity. The roustabout doesn’t need a degree. It is the training … and that guy that was seen in the community as a nobody, is able to contribute meaningfully in that community [after training],” he emphasized.
Chairman of WASA is former Guyana Water Incorporated, Chief Executive Officer, Richard Van West-Charles and he informed that WASA comprised companies from Ghana, Guyana, Nigeria, and the Congo.
Dr Van West-Charles, who was a participant at last year’s Energy Conference, said that the company was incorporated here about year ago, after discussions with the now principals.
WASA, he disclosed, was 51 per cent Guyanese-owned and the other 49 per cent comprised persons from the other countries.
He explained that the overall aim is to tap into the experience of the companies he partnered with to have a skills and knowledge transfer system, even as the company served the sector.
“This company is an oil and gas company and its purpose is looking at the training and capacity building and personnel sourcing for the industry in Guyana, looking at regulatory compliance, institutional strengthening and procurement warehousing and servicing,” he said.
Overall, he said he wants to “Make our operations in Guyana… more efficient. These countries have gone ahead of us in terms of exploration and production, in terms of oil and gas, hence I think it is important to bring the lessons learned and best practices … to assist us.”
This Saturday, Van West-Charles announced the company’s plan to hold a meeting with persons who have technical skills, such as welders, but who work in areas outside of the sector, because they are not certified.
