25 November 2012, Sweetcrude, Yenagoa – The Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB and the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, that will make creating employment for young and qualified graduates part of the conditions for winning oil and gas contracts.
The two organizations signed the agreement dubbed-NCDMB-PETAN Capacity Building Internship Program during the opening ceremony of the Practical Nigerian Content Conference held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State last week.
The Executive Secretary, Ernest Nwapa signed for the Board, while PETAN Chairman, Mr. Emeka Ene signed for the service companies association.
Under the MoU, PETAN companies will make commitments in the form of plans that they will recruit qualified Nigerian graduates.
The NCDMB will issue certificates to the service companies on receipt of the plans and the commitments will count alongside other variables in the evaluation of bids by service companies for industry contracts.
Thereafter, NCDMB and PETAN will recruit qualified Nigerian graduates and expose them to various training and skills development workshops and on-the-job training to prepare them to work in the course of the contracts and gain employment.
PETAN companies will then absorb the trainees once they win the contracts and retain them after the internship phase based on their performance.
Part of the MoU read, “PETAN Companies will recruit qualified Nigerian graduates as trainees attached to a contract for a period of one year.
“PETAN Companies will absorb the candidates after the programme based on their performance and available vacancies.”
Throwing further light on the MoU, Nwapa commended PETAN for partnering the Board on the initiative, adding that the association was chosen for the implementation because they represent Nigerian Technical Oilfield service companies in the upstream and downstream sectors of the Oil industry.
According to him, a cardinal aspiration of the Nigerian Content Act is to create employment opportunities for Nigerians, hence companies that win industry contracts must train and employ young Nigerians, so that the economy will derive maximum benefits from the Act’s implementation.
He explained that the programme is an improvement of the Board’s Nigerian Oil and Gas Employment and Training Tracking System (NOGETTS) and will encapsulate the current project based training, which had created over 5000 training and attachment opportunities for Nigerians in the last two years.
He identified the advantage of the new scheme to include that trainees would have
been prepared somewhat before the award of contracts, so as to enable them work meaningfully and that companies would commit to employ them as a pre-condition for winning the jobs.
A joint committee from NCDMB, PETAN and the Petroleum Technology Development Fund will be set up to implement the programme.
Present at the MoU signing ceremony included, the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, and his Deputy, Rt. Real Admiral John Jonah and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum, Ambassador Abdulkadir Musa who represented the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Other industry big wigs at the event included the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Andrew Yakubu, the Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Osten Oluronsola, the Managing Director of Exxonmobil Nigeria, Mr. Mark Ward, the Managing Director, Chevron Nigeria Ltd, Mr. Andrew Fawthrop and the Managing Director of Total E &P, Mr. Guy Maurice.
Others included the Managing Director of SNEPCO Mr. Chike Onyejekwe, Managing Director, Nigerian Agip Oil Company, Mr. Ciro Pagano, Managing Director, Addax Petroleum, Mr. Cornelis Zegelaar and chief executives of multinationals and local service companies.