THE Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development is focusing on the development of its Human Resources at both local and international levels.

This is according to Permanent Secretary Collin Croal, who, at a press briefing last Friday, in the Ministry’s Boardroom at Kingston, Georgetown, pointed out that human resources are an important component of any ministry.
He said, as such, the Ministry of Local Government has been expanding; there are approximately 12 new personnel joining the establishment.
Croal said the ministry’s first engagement for 2013, in terms of human resource, will be presented at an international level very shortly, whereby three persons from the ministry will be representing it, at an international workshop to be held for one week in February at Birmingham University.
He said the programmme is sponsored by Pan Commonwealth Executive Programmes for Chief Finance Officers and the three persons to represent the Local Government Ministry include himself, Senior Regional Development Officer, Puran Persaud and Municipal Officer, Fabian Jerricks.
Participants are expected to come out of the one week training with an opportunity to share experiences that are arising in both developed and developing countries with respect to ministerial development internationally, Croal stated.

General approach
He also said the ministry’s goal is to ensure that all employees, in one way or another, benefit from training that will expand their range of work and change their general approach as to how they go about their everyday duties.
Croal said a workshop that was to be held in December has been bought forward as a result of not having enough time.
Thus far, though, one conducted recently for the regional engineers has been deemed very successful and the only negative feedback was that the one-day time span was not enough and such agendas should be held for two or more days.
Nevertheless, there was a fair amount of participation from all the invitees, with 90 of the 117 persons invited in attendance.
Croal also acknowledged that staff from the Ministry of Public Works attended and joined with presentations on various topics such as the design and preparation of Bill of Quantities.
In addition, staff from the Auditor General’s Office made presentations on payments and overpayments.
He indicated that training for workers will not cease and, presently, the ministry is in the process of finalising more programmes for 2013 at all levels.