As part of the Cross River State Government’s commitment to ensuring that indigenes of the state acquire the necessary skills needed in the country’s emerging power sector, 15 Cross Riverians are presently being sponsored by the state government to the tune of N135.5 million at the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria Graduate Skills Development Programme, NGSDP, www.calitown.com can reveal.
The Cross River State Investment Promotions Bureau which revealed this information further said that the 15 persons who are all graduate engineers and mostly drawn from the mechanical and electrical electronics engineering fields, were selected from a pool of 52 graduates to undergo the training. A breakdown of the figure shows that each candidate is costing the CRSG N750, 000 as training cost while an additional monthly stipend of N25, 000 per participant is paid. Documents made available to www.calitown.com show that while the Gerald Adah-led Bureau is “responsible for encouraging, promoting and coordinating investment in CRS”, it has gone a step further to identify such specialised training opportunities and is midwifing a series of processes that will better position indigenes of the state to compete among the best Nigeria has to offer.
Additionally, with the state’s increased direct internally generated revenue standing at N5 billion and major investors like General Electric, Unicem, Wilmar etc making direct investments in the state’s economy, “the attendant potentials of this economic situation cannot be left untapped by indigenes of this state”, as a source at the Bureau put it. At the end of the traîning, each participant will be equipped with the necessary skills needed by the various power sector companies in the country, based on the skills need and gap analysis conducted on the companies.
