PAP: Only 50% Of Ex-Agitators Get Employed After Training – Ndiomu

The Interim administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Maj. Gen. Barry Tariye Ndiomu (rtd), has urged vendors handling vocational skills training programmes to properly negotiate job placement conditions with relevant institutions to secure guaranteed employment which would offer minimum living income and benefits for the delegates at the end of such training.

Maj. Gen. Ndiomu stated this when he visited one of the vendors, Sunup Logistics Ltd in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where 200 delegates from the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) are currently undergoing vocational skills training in maritime and related areas to acquire competencies in a swamp buggy, cranes and fork-lifting operations, plumbing, carpentry, tug boat/barges operations.

The Interim Administrator said he was concerned that only 50% of the delegates will be employed for a short period of 30 months after which they might be thrown back to the labour market to start hunting for fresh jobs, saying that such an arrangement would not provide guaranteed employment for the delegates.

“Having listened to you (CEO of Sunup Logistics Ltd), that at the end of the day you are talking of employing just 50% of the trained delegates.

“You know am asking questions because I would have thought that when you have a training programme like this, the idea is to have them gainfully employed at the end of the training. What we expect of them (delegates) is to be employed because the whole thing to me, is like an uncertainty.

“The Presidential Amnesty Scheme intends to keep these boys (delegates) busy after providing them with the vocational skills so that they do not go to back to the same thing. From your briefing, I don’t think we are moving in the direction of success. I think we need to find a way to address these issues.

“Go and negotiate and get slots from relevant industries or firms that can engage the delegates and train them to meet the needs of these companies. By now, you should have had job placement slots for these two hundred delegates you have here.

“There are opportunities outside this country. Because these institutions we are talking about require skills. You go and negotiate and get slots for the delegates to be employed after their training here. We need institutions that should absorb them after the training,” Maj. Gen. Ndiomu reiterated.

Earlier, the CEO of Sunup Logistics Ltd, Mr. Frank Ovie, had briefed the Interim Administrator about the various vocational skills programmes being offered at the centre, adding that 200 amnesty delegates were currently undergoing various vocational skills training and that only 50% of the delegates will be employed for just a period of 30 months.

Mr. Ovie said at the end of the training the graduands will be duly certified by various accrediting international bodies to enable them work anywhere in the world, noting that more delegates could be engaged, pending the improvement in the job supply needs from the oil and gas sector which according to him, was gradually coming back after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a related development, the Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Maj. Gen. Barry Tariye Ndiomu (rtd) has advised the 200 delegates undergoing vocational skills training at Sunup Logistics Ltd, Port-Harcourt to take their training serious and conduct themselves well.

He assured them that their requests concerning the welfare, security and provision of study aids will be looked into by the office and proffer possible solutions, pointing out that their earlier demand for extension of the training programme may not be feasible in the present circumstance.

Earlier, the spokesman for the delegates, Bobos Ebizimor, had appealed to the Interim Administrator to look into their plight and come to their aid to enable have a hitch free programme.

“Critically, job guarantee raises the wage floor by establishing a labour standard for minimum pay and working conditions for all jobs in an economy. Choosing to work a full-time position can allow employees to experience many employment advantages through the various company benefits and perks offered,” he stated.