Mr Abuga Pele, Executive Director of Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), has commended the Goodwill International Group (GIG) for successfully training the youth in oil and gas.

He said “I must commend the authorities of the Goodwill International Group especially its CEO, Mr Philip Akpeena for getting the foresight, wisdom and the expertise to train Ghana’s youth to fill gaps in the local content required in the oil and gas industry”.

Mr Pele was speaking to the media after a graduation ceremony of beneficiaries of the MDPI/Goodwill oil and gas training for some 7,020 persons organised in Accra.

Mr Pele said GYEEDA had no regrets partnering the Goodwill and MDPI for such a national exercise adding that the essence of nation building was about creating jobs and giving the youth the needed employable skills to cater for their future.

He said GYEEDA sponsored more than 4,000 youth to gain practical experience on oil and gas from Goodwill training and expressed the hope that the beneficiaries would use the experience to gain employment from oil companies as well as forming their private enterprises to participate in the oil and gas value chain.

Earlier, Mr Kofi Humado, Minister of Youth and Sports, in a speech read on his behalf, thanked Goodwill International Group and its partners for developing the programme.

He expressed the hope that the next group would be engaged in a similar training, which should commenced immediately to enable rapid increase of Ghanaian youth with the needed competencies and certificates for effective enforcement of the local content policy guidelines.

The Goodwill International Group in partnership with the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) trained a total of 7,020 people on oil and gas aimed at filling gas in Ghana’s oil and gas local content requirement.

In addressing the challenges, government developed the local content policy guidelines to maximize the benefits of oil and gas wealth generation by optimizing the use of local expertise, goods and services in the oil and gas value chain.

Mr Philip Assibit Akpeena, Executive Director of Goodwill International Group, said to enable Ghanaian youth benefit from the local content package, Goodwill in partnership with the GYEEDA and other public and private organisations as well as individuals developed the programme and conducted it at the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI).

He said the programme was designed and delivered by internationally accredited trainers and service providers including Petro-skills, Micro 3 strategy and Health check International, among others to ensure that the content and delivery methodology as well as documentations and certification met the global standards of the industry.

Mr Akpeena said regulatory requirements, ethics and expectations of local players, policy makers and policy owners, as well as public and private enterprises linked to the industry were considered in the planning and delivery of the programme.

He said local organisations such as the Ghana Maritime Academy and Ghana Petroleum Skills Development Institute and some experts of some of the universities were directly involved in the programme’s planning and delivery.

He said the delivery process was harmonised at both convergence level with local content requirements and opportunities and at divergence levels with international standard requirements and work abroad.

He said beneficiaries had been prepared in competency based courses linked to their respective careers and levels of education, to equip them with practical hands-on skills to take full advantage of opportunities in the oil and gas industry.

Mr Akpeena said the programme was in line with the government’s commitment to youth employment and local content facilitation and enforcement and that Goodwill would do its best to collaborate with agencies that aimed at its human resource development especially in the oil and gas sector.