MoU signed with US companies to train, certify Guyanese in welding, fabrication

Guyanese will soon benefit from certified training in the field of welding and fabrication in the United States following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Friday morning between local company GAICO Construction Inc and the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), and US companies, Myer and Hargrove.

The MoU was signed by representatives of the four entities on Friday morning at GAICO’s booth at the International Energy Conference and Expo hosted at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Georgetown.
It secures the commitment of the foreign companies to form an International Apprentice Programme that will see skilled Guyanese being trained and certified at the highest levels in the US in order to prepare them to fully capitalise on the opportunities in the local oil and gas sector.
Vice President – Business Development at Myer Companies, Bradley Myer explained that this partnership alliance is geared towards bringing Guyana’s welding and fabrication skillset up to international standards.
“We found that there is great local content here in Guyana and we can play our part in helping to bring out that local talent and truly help local content come along to compete worldwide,” he told reporters.
Myer noted that the signing sets the framework for these training activities, and in the next 60 days the partners will be working together to iron out the details of the programme.
“For us and our part, it means bringing Guyanese talent to Alabama and training them at our facility for a time period of roughly four months, but even those details need to be completely ironed out, and then come back here to the shores of Guyana fully certified amongst the best, really, in the world as far as American Building Society Certifications [go],” he explained.
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton noted that Government welcomes such partnerships with foreign investors that caters for the development of local capacity.
He said that Government was approached by the Myer Company representative during the Energy Conference, which ended on Friday, with the proposal for certified training for Guyanese and following discussions, a decision was taken to collaborate.
“At the level of policy, I know what the Government is seeking to do and therefore every opportunity that we have that we can expose our people to the highest type of training to participate in the industry, I, as Minister of Labour and the Board of Industrial Training, we will take those opportunities to ensure that we can together develop this country of ours.”
“We expect investors to make profits from their investments, and Guyana is open for business, but at the same time, we would want to twin the facilities that we have here so that they can help us develop human resources,” Hamilton posited.
According to the Labour Minister, more such collaborations will be coming on stream in the near future. In fact, he noted that BIT has had similar discussions with other companies over the past week on the sidelines of conference including leading oil and gas operators in Africa that are willing to help the country build its local capacity to take full advantage of opportunities from the oil and gas sector.
Moreover, US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch pointed out that the MoU signed on Friday supports Guyana’s Local Content Policy by providing tremendous opportunities for Guyanese to get world class training in the United States.
I think highly trained Guyanese will be better prepared to get jobs at higher levels so I think it’s directly related to local content. These companies are doing their best to make sure that they take already talented Guyanese but giving them the opportunity to have specific training for their specific needs during this day and age in Guyana… [They] will come back fully certified and can participate at a higher level in the companies that need welders, which there are a lot of right now in Guyana,” the US diplomat stated.
This is the second MoU that GAICO Construction has signed during the four-day International Energy Conference and Expo.
The local construction company on Thursday inked another agreement with US-based end-to-end commissioning services company, Rev1 Energy, to boosted GAICO’s capacity in bidding for major projects in the oil and gas industry and other sectors.
Additionally, Friday’s MoU with Myer and Hargrove is the second one signed by GAICO. Last August on sidelines of the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, GAICO entered into a partnership the two US companies to work together towards the development of projects in Guyana while also enabling the transfer of skills and technology for the development of the Guyanese workforce in the growing oil and gas sector. (G8)