Latest update January 23rd, 2025 7:40 AM
Need for a petroleum institute to be part of UG’s curriculum
Dear Editor,
There have been many comments concerning the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund with respect to the coming production of oil and gas in this country. What concerns me more is the setting up of adequate funding to cater for the training of local personnel in the various crafts attached to the production and marketing of hydrocarbons.
This country needs to make sure that local content does not merely involve the shelling out of contracts to the already rich and famous but also the creation of opportunities for employment in both the management and other levels of activity within this nascent industry.
Our national problem is what to do for our youth. We can start now to set up a training fund to cater for the training of requisite skills abroad while at the same time we make strides to fund a local petroleum institute attached to UG. This local institute will cater to the training needs that will exist.
Our agreement with all the players in the industry must cater for the placement of our own young people in all strata so that within a period of 20 years we can be assured that a significant number of persons employed shall be Guyanese. The time to start is now. Companies like Halliburton will draw their staff mainly from the continental USA. We must change this situation within the first decade of oil/gas production.
On another matter; I can’t help remarking about the short shrift given a report received by the police concerning a threat to the life of the Republic’s President. I personally feel that those who received the report have trivialised it and made it to look like it is not an important issue.
Government needs to take a critical review of the persons who received the said report and the manner in which it was dealt with throughout the chain of command. Judging from the after effects of the recent prison disturbances and all their attendant circumstances, it is high time that significant changes be made in the hierarchy of the Joint Services.
If these persons in charge cannot think seriously on matters concerning our President’s security, then none of us in the public can be made to feel safe under their watch.
Cyril Walker
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