MATPAL MARINE INSTITUTE (MPMI) in collaboration with the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD), on Friday held its certificate awards ceremony at its boardroom at Battery Road and Fort Street, Kingston where a group of mariners/seafarers were presented with certificates after successfully completing training courses.

Those who successfully completed the Basic Safety Training (BST) and Ship Security Awareness (SSA) courses were presented with certificates by managers of TH&D.

In brief remarks, TH&D General Manager Marcelene Merchant told the gathering that she was very pleased to be at the first awards ceremony, in which mariners were trained and some successfully completed the various courses.

Merchant said, “T&HD has 156 mariners, 78 are slated to complete the Certification and Watch-keeping for Seafarer programme before year-end. Thus far 47 persons have been trained and the remaining 31 persons might [ be trained] within the next two months.”
She related that the training courses which cost $9.8M entailed basic safety and ship management.

Those who completed the one-week Certification and Watch-Keeping programmes were charged by Merchant to put into practice what they had learnt to improve their own safety and that of others on ships, and she wished those who were yet to do courses to become successful as well.

Meanwhile, Administrator MatPal Marine Institute Coleen Abrams said that with the handing out of certificates a shared dream that had become full circle and, they were hoping to widen the scope of training to cater for oil and gas.

She encouraged the awardees to raise the bar of excellence on board the vessels, to keep the TH&D flag flying high and to continue to prove their worth as seamen despite the rough waters of the sea.

In giving a brief background of MPMI, Abrams said the company was the only existing maritime school in Guyana, and had been providing maritime training and certification for seafarers for over 18 years.
She added that from its inception (October 5, 1999) to present they had been addressing the training needs of Guyanese seafarers, as well as those from across the region.

Abrams disclosed that throughout the 18 years, MatPal Marine has successfully trained and retrained over 1,200 seafarers, enabling them to be employed both locally and internationally and more recently also being employed on vessels within Guyana’s oil and gas industry.

She stated that all training was carried out in accordance with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO’s) Standard for Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) 1978 Convention, as amended in 1995/ 2010 and approved by the Maritime Administration Department of Guyana (MARAD) with certification issued by Panama Maritime Training Services (PMTS) of which they were the satellite in Guyana.

During the period May to July 2018, over 50 Deck and Engine Room Officers and sailors of the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) embarked on, and completed safety and security training under internationally recognised safety standards, thus enabling them to be industry compliant.