Finance Minister urges companies to source staff from within community

…as Genequip facilitates tour of US$2M Houston facility

General Equipment Guyana Limited (Genequip) on Monday hosted a tour of its recently-built US$2 million facility, as the company looks to ramp up its investments not only in the traditional gold and agriculture sectors, but oil as well.
While lauding the company’s investment, Finance Minister Winston Jordan also gave general encouragement to companies to seek to employ persons within the community they were based, once the opportunity was there.
“This is the first of several businesses to be lodged here. And the only thing I would ask those businesses is see if you can seek employment from the area, from those who live here. I’m not saying you’ll source all, but seek to source some of the employment from here so that the concept of South Ruimveldt can be realized.”
The Finance Minister was also in praise of the company for diversifying its activities, as he noted that it supplied agriculture and mining equipment, as well as source items for other companies.
“Happily, they are (involved in) two of the top sectors in Guyana – mining and agriculture. They’re selling mining and agriculture equipment, which is good; we talk a lot about the diversification of the economy.
“And they also do other work for other companies in Guyana, where they bring in equipment. They actually brought in some equipment, which I suspect was bought with money from the bond. They have it there, equipment which have to do with cane harvesting,” he said.
It is understood that the facility has a 4000-square-foot showroom and a 14,000 square-foot workshop. In an interview afterwards, Operations Manager Schelte Van Dijk explained that the structure was built to be energy efficient.
“Rather than going with a green building, we went with a lean building. So we’re a little more energy efficient. All the lights are LEDs, motion sensors, keyless entry into the building. Our total consumption on this building is the equivalent of a home. We use about 28 KVA [kilo-volt-ampere] on a building of this size,” Van Dijk said.
Other features of the facility include a 650-square-foot training facility, where the company takes on top local students from industrial training centres in Guyana. Van Dijk explained that places the company has training arrangements with include the Government Technical Institute (GTI).
“We also have a cooperation with the School of Agriculture. But the most notable one is GTI, where we also train the teachers of GTI. Every year, we also take on as many students as we can. That’s direct employment, vacation work and internships.”
“The significance is that equipment does not maintain itself, it has to be maintained by people. We’re constantly training young people to be able to maintain heavy equipment for the mining, agriculture and also the oil companies,” he said.
Also in attendance during the tour was Business Minister Haimraj Rajkumar, who expressed the belief that the company’s investment was a positive indicator; and Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman.