$55.4M Skills Development and Certification Centre commissioned at Corriverton

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh on Tuesday commissioned a new training facility on the Upper Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
The $55.4 million Skills Development and Certification Centre at Corriverton falls under the Labour Ministry and will be facilitating training through the Board of Industrial Training (BIT). Singh in pointed out that in Guyana there is now a greater demand for labour. In explaining the importance of the Government ensuring that there is training opportunities available said this is more important to Guyana as a rapidly growing economy noting that more persons are investing in the economy thus making more jobs available.

“As a result of that rapid expansion in investments, there are new jobs being created and there are new opportunities being created. We are seeing more investments in every single sector of the economy than at any other time in the history of our country. We are seeing more skills demanded, both in terms of the skilled types, and in terms of the numbers of people within skilled types,” the Finance Minister explained. The BIT has trained more than 15,400 persons in the last five years. Despite that there is still a shortage of labour within the country.
“You cannot find enough heavy equipment operators right now in Guyana. There are businesses right here in Berbice that have equipment parked up because they cannot find operators for those equipment.” He encouraged persons to utilise the facility and to take full advantage of the opportunities being provided by the Government. Meanwhile, Labour Minster, Joseph Hamilton alluded to the thousands of persons who have already been trained, have graduated and have been adding to the growing labour force in the country.
According to the Labour Minister, the Government has moved into another phase of its training programme and is constructing training units with the most being the one at Corriverton. Others are at New Amsterdam, Unity, Tuschen, Port Kaituma, Mahdia and Lethem in Region Nine.
Hamilton said the in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Government is tasked with training 2,400 for one of the largest gold mines being developed there.
Between 2020 and 2025, Government’s BIT invested $1.14 billion in skills training to the benefit of over 15,000 persons across the country of which almost 3,000 persons benefitted in Region Six through partnerships with technical institutes, community organizations, private workshops, and beauty and catering enterprises. This effort spanned over 35 villages, including New Amsterdam, Port Mourant, Rose Hall, Canje, Albion, and Black Bush Polder. Meanwhile, Chairman of BIT David Armogan speaking about the need to have more skilled persons, said there is a gap between the available skills and that which is required.
According to Armogan, BIT is trying to bridge that gap as there are not enough skills to satisfy the demand. “If you go into many other areas where they need skills development and training, where they need skilled persons, you will find that people complain on a daily basis that they are finding difficulty getting, you know, proper people, certified people to work. Regardless of how skilled you are, one of the things that people who are coming in to invest in our country, what they look for is certification. And this is what the board offers, certification,” Armogan explained.