A total of thirty local participants will benefit from a one year training program launched Thursday last week with the aim of equipping local supervisors (contractors) with technical quality skills to do government construction works in the country.
The training was a joint initiative organized by the National Government, through the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) and a technical team from Brisbane, through the Government of Australia.
The training will be facilitated by the Training Sector Development Program (TSDP) and will take the whole of this year, where it will end in December.
Speaking during the launching, TSDP team leader, David Spring said his team is really pleased to be in the Solomon Islands as it is their first time, and they will try their best and make sure that local supervisors are trained and achieve better quality build-up of their skills at work.
He stressed that this intensive training will widely cover all aspects on infrastructure construction, but basically the training is mostly based on road construction.
Mr. Spring explained that with the training participants will help lessen the cost MID spends on other private companies.
“And with the professionalism these supervisors have, they will be able to build infrastructures in the Solomon Islands according to the standard of infrastructure construction,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, Moses Virivolomo has also acknowledged the Training Sector Development Program (TSDP) Team leader, David Spring and the Government of Australia for their acceptance to facilitate the program.
Mr Virivolomo said the knowledge participants gained from the training will have a great impact on the development of the country, especially in terms of infrastructure.
He added that participants in this training will include; staff from the MID, local consultants and other local contractors who get contracts from the MID.
Mr Virivolomo stressed that this training will enable our supervisors to work together with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development to deliver good quality infrastructure development in the country.
Since the ministry had halted its own vibrant field construction during the height of the ethnic tension, the ministry had been without machineries and top supervisors to do the ministry’s work.
Until now, the ministry usually lends out works to consultants, local contractors and those from the private sectors.
“This training will help the supervisors to build good relations with the ministry, understand each other in what they are doing, so that at the end of the day, the ministry and the local consultants will achieve qualities of the work with less maintenance costs,” he said.
Mr Virivolomo said that out of the thirty trainees, twenty eight will train as supervisors and two will train as technical investigators.
The training was funded by the National Government through the MID, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Australian Gov’t and New Zealand Gov’t under the project of the Transport Sector.
– GCU
