Here we are in 2023 — EIGHT years after Exxon and its consortium had struck oil, and way past three years of shipping the black liquid gold — having the World Bank Resident Representative for Guyana and Suriname, Diletta Doretti, telling us that we have less than half of the skills that are demanded by the sector!! “…Of the high demand jobs, welders and engineers, environmental specialists, there are only 49.6% of those skills readily available,” she bemoaned. And let’s not even talk about “seafarers”, even though we always had a large fishing sector – and an even larger collection of pirates who know their way around the sea!! Ahoy…me maties on FPSOs!!
The point of this is that, as soon as the PNC coalition got into Government – the same month that oil was discovered – they should’ve conducted a “baseline study” to identify needed skills going forward. This isn’t rocket science, and allowing for the fact that this was new to us, they knew that, right next door, they’ve been dealing with oil production for a HUNDRED YEARS!! Not to mention that there are consulting firms out there to conduct such studies at the drop of an…erm…dollar!!
So, rather than giving themselves a 50% raise in salary when they hadn’t even settled into their seats, they would’ve known in which specific areas to start training Guyanese, so they’d be employed directly and indirectly in the oil industry!! At least, when the PPP were allowed in – after six months! – they could’ve then built on the programs in place, so by now we would’ve been well on our way to filling all positions with locals. As it is, we’re about two years away from getting there – the two years during which the PNC illegally squatted in the Government after failing the No Confidence Motion (NCM)!!
In the meantime, the venerable and reliable Port Mourant GuySuCo that churned out thousands of skilled, world class technical workers since 1957 is being expanded presently by the PPP Government to include workers for O&G. Exxon had trained some workers for its FPSOs in Canada, but now we’ll have the training capabilities in Guyana. Then there is the privately-owned OPITO Training Centre of Excellence at Lusignan, opened last year. It’s a joint venture partnership between 3 locally owned Guyanese companies and the internationally accredited 3T EnerMech to grow Guyana’s oil and gas talent and support the needs of the region.
One of the fastest ways to bring our trainees in our technical schools, TVET programme, etc up to snuff would be to hire them as interns for two days weekly – to understudy the skilled foreigners brought in. This would create a seamless transition in dealing with our ever-rising needs!!
