–facility to also be utilised as a regional labour office

THE Ministry of Labour, through the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), was, on Friday, allocated a plot of land by the Mahdia Town Council, to construct a training centre and labour office.

The land, which is 100ft in length and 60ft in width, has enough space for the establishment of a facility which will be equipped to improve the delivery of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).

Once completed, the facility, which will be located along the airstrip road and 10 minutes away from central Mahdia, would be a hub for services offered by the Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Department, and the Department of Co-operatives and Friendly Societies, which are all subsidiaries of the Ministry of Labour.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BIT, Richard Maughn, in an invited comment to the Guyana Chronicle, said that the board had reached out to the township to procure a plot of land to construct a training centre in the region.

Owing to the request, the Town Council identified a plot of land and, in an act of philanthropy, donated it to BIT.

Although a space has been identified, Maughn said a timeline for construction has not yet been set. However, there are plans to fence the land by the end of the next quarter of the year. Moving forward, he said the possibility exists for a public-private partnership on this project.

Further, Maughn said the establishment of such a centre in the region would afford young people the opportunity of benefitting from several forms of industrial training, as well as provide extensive services to the entire region.

With the establishment of a centre, residents of Region Eight will no longer have to travel to the Georgetown to access labour services or file complaints of breaches to the labour laws.
Following up on what the CEO said, Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, added that the government’s aim is have training opportunities and labour services readily available in all 10 administrative regions.

“The position is that every region must have similar services, and so for that to happen we have to have facilities and we have to have offices. And presently, I have officers who are working out of their vehicles and brief cases and we have to change that,” he said, adding: “We have to work with Region Eight to ensure that we have officers here. We have the board of industrial training but we don’t have an officer here… we have to employ occupational and safety officer because you know in the mining district there are a lot of deaths that occur and that has to end.”

The minister said that BIT is also in talks with the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to obtain a plot of land in Kwakwani, Region 10, to establish a similar centre.

Speaking about the establishment of a hub for labour services in Region Eight, Mayor of Mahdia, David Adams, said it will contribute significantly to the advancement of the people and the region’s economy.

He added that BIT has been playing a significant role in advancing the lives of young people within this township and region, so the construction of an official building will be a continuation of development on this front in Mahdia.