FOLLOWING the presentation of the National Budget 2025, the Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton stated that over the past four years, each budget has been building off of the previous one, allowing government to continue building on its programmes and projects.

Minister Hamilton outlined that the National Budget placed significant emphasis on infrastructure, education, healthcare, and economic diversification.

Minister Hamilton remarked, “The budget is building on last year’s budget and the year before, and it focuses on, of course, infrastructure development. It focuses on human capacity development because you can have all the money in the world [but] if you don’t have people who are competent enough to execute, you would have difficulty.”

Minister Hamilton pointed out that the Ministry of Finance has made more money available to the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) to execute training programmes across a number of disciplines.

He underscored that the goal of the ministry in 2025 is to train around 4,000 persons through different skills training opportunities.

Prior to 2020, the average number of persons trained through BIT was 1,300 to 1,500 persons. Today, over a four-year period, the Board of Industrial Training has trained approximately 12,742 persons.

“The other important thing is that the programmes we execute, they have been able to touch people in every region, in every area where people live in Guyana. And that is important, to have all these skill sets all over that place. We hope that in 2025, we can train about 4,000 persons. The Ministry of Finance, they have made more money available to the Board of Industrial Training to execute programmes,” Minister Hamilton stated.

He noted further that outside of this, there are other programmes that will be executed under the ministry this year.
These programmes include a two-year programme that will commence this year, with funding by the World Bank, and will be supervised by the Guyana Energy Agency, executed by the Board of Industrial Training. The programme will train 20 women, two from each region, in an apprenticeship programme in electrical installation and basic PV technology.

This continues a programme that was executed by BIT, with funding from the Inter-Development Bank, (IDB), for 75 females in solar photovoltaic technology, from Regions Seven and Nine.

Additionally, the ministry is also part of a United States Agency for International Development Youth Resilience, Inclusion and Empowerment (USAID Y-RIE) programme, funded by USAID. The intention behind this is to train 90 youths who are in at-risk situations from communities such as Albouystown/Charlestown, Sophia, and New Amsterdam.

One of the most important programmes, according to the minister is that of the Canadian company, G-Mining which has collaborated with BIT to roll out technical skills training to potential employees of the company, in areas such as welding, mechanics, Heavy Duty Equipment Operation (HDEO), instrumentation and pipe fitting.

At its facility in Bartica, the Board will train approximately 1,500 staff who will work at the mining site. Subsequent to this, another batch will be trained once the mine is in operation.

It should be noted that the primary focus of this programme is on both males and females in Region Seven.

Alongside this, Minister Hamilton indicated that the ministry will continue to support and make funds available to the National Commission for Disability to train persons living with disabilities in multiple skill areas.

Additionally, the ministry will expand several apprenticeship programmes with companies so that apprentices can develop their skills in various areas.