By Mary Poni
The Ministry of Petroleum is currently conducting training for the technical, non-technical, accountants and others from the oil sectors companies under the theme “staff training is the blocks-making for building competent workforce in the oil sector.”
The training commenced yesterday (Monday) in Juba and facilitated by an expert Prof. Mohamed Zayed Awad from Sudan to tackle part of the training on the fundamentals of petroleum contracts and economics in the country.
Prof. Mohamed Zayed Awad said that the training is an awareness of knowledge course and the main objective of the training was to bridge the gap between the technical people and the non-technical accountants and others.
“In such a very much capital intensive, sectors or investment, you must work in team of different siblings and they have to understand and have a common language and sharing the meaning of each word of the different siblings to easily understand what they are working on,” Prof. Awad said.
Director General for planning at the Ministry of Petroleum, Mr. Arkangelo Okwang said they need to establish a geological survey of South Sudan which is out of the Ministry of Petroleum, Mining and Ministry of Water and Resources.
He disclosed that the geological survey will be an independent institution that has to do with the survey of the country, hosting all the data and all the geological data which must be hosted by the geological surveyors and it takes competent people to run it.
Okwang cited that to manage a sector involving foreigners they should be having highly qualified manpower that are so strong enough to avoid being unregulated.
“Someone with little knowledge cannot regulate a person with much experience and this is where you can realize in certain industries,” he underlined.
He added that a country with no confident people and as a result, those who come in with qualifications from foreign countries will play certain.
“Management of contracts and contractors has become a big challenge currently whether we pretend to know it or not, we have not reached that level but we need to reach to that level of managing contracts and contractors at the same time,” he noted.
The D.G underscored that he know Sudan suffered for couple of times when they took over oil industry to get out with the foreigners until they coped up.
Okwang said that he has signed a contract with the Ugandan government for the operation of airborne geological aircraft, adding that they will soon start conducting operations which may not take them two weeks to establish it and the geological survey will be done in some areas of the country.
Director for Admin and Finance Labanya Margret Mathya stated that conducting the training would be a great learning that will never divert people out of their righteous wishes because it’s thorough learning that will empower people’s minds to keep them way ahead.
“We expect that by the end of the day, as we leave this place, we will be stabilized in our thoughts and spirits,” said Margret Mathya.
“When we maintain our strong calls of our knowledge and keep our hearts burning with desires, the commandments that we get through learning will be able to shape our ways to move forward,” she said.
The undersecretary at the Ministry of Petroleum Mayen Wol Jong added that the workshop was planned to review the policies, under the theme “staff training is the blocks-making for building competent workforce in the oil sector.”
“If you are delegated to supervise people you must have supper knowledge and knowledge can be acquired anywhere by learning more,” Wol emphasized.