No fewer than 40 non-militants who were undergoing the mandatory skill acquisition training at the Petroleum Technology Institute (PTI) Effurun, Warri, Delta State, under the empowerment programme of the? Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, in conjunction with Scotchville Industrial Consortium, have graduated.
Congratulating the first batch of the PTI graduates, through the director, Community Relations and Youth Development, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe expressed optimism that the knowledge acquired by the youths, who had been trained for six months, would help to solve the problem of unemployment and insecurity in the region.
Charging the benefiting youths to make good use of the knowledge garnered during the training to justify the huge investment of the federal government on them, the minister noted that there were well over two million untapped job opportunities in the country.
He said that his ministry, as the supervisory mother of both grassroots, human capital as well as public sector development, would make it a point of duty to unveil these opportunities in the once neglected region, so as to usher in the needed peace and development in the region.
Stressing the need to meaningfully engage the region’s youth, Orubebe disclosed that the ministry would secure soft loans for them to enable them establish their own businesses, and added that the ministry was particularly working closely with Scotchville Industrial Consortium on how? a majority of them could secure jobs locally and internationally.
The minister further noted that the consortium had, indeed, attained a feat which no other capacity building consultant working his ministry had attained, by going the extra mile it went to avail the graduating students the opportunity to acquire further certification in health safety and environment, a much sought after course in the oil and gas industry at its own expense.????? ?
Orubebe, in fulfilment of the ministry’s earlier pledge of giving all the 595 Niger Delta ministry’s trainees a laptop computer each to enhance their ICT skills, distributed Laptop computers each to the 40 graduating students.
To this end, he charged the graduates to, as a matter of fact, remain peace ambassadors and ensure that the skills acquired were put to proper use.
While eulogising the management of Scotchville Industrial Consortium for impacting quality skill on the students and keeping fate with the terms of the contract, the Minister stated that Scotchville will be one? of the several private training institutions the Ministry would continue to partner with as far as the training programme of the ministry is concern.
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