Admin l Saturday, October 14, 2017
LAGOS, Nigeria – The National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN) has commenced training of 36 personnel, working with Liberia Electricity Company (LEC) on power generation, distribution and transmission.
Its Acting Director General, Alhaji Ahmed Nagode, disclosed this in Lagos at the weekend during the official inauguration of the training programme. Nagode said that the training programme was being sponsored by West African Power Pool (WAPP) in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development.
“This programme is designed to train the LEC staff for two weeks. It is aimed at promoting West African Countries’ integration on power sector training and to share experience among West African countries.’’
The acting director-general said that WAPP came together to help grow and improve the technical skills of LEC personnel, adding that the trainees would in turn use this acquired knowledge to resolve their nation’s power challenges.
“Leveraging on the strength of one another through proper synergy has proven to be a catalyst for growth and development. World-class companies and institutions have at one time or another sought partnership with each other to grow,” he said.
Nagode said that the course was designed in three models with 18 personnel to be trained at NAPTIN Regional Training Centre in Ijora, Lagos, while the other 18 personnel would be trained at Kanji Dam. According to him, the objective of the training is to improve their capacity on electricity generation, distribution and transmission network.
“The training will also increase their capacity in effective power supply and revenue collection,’’ the NAPTIN boss said. He said that the courses would include – power distribution maintenance and repairs, power transmission network and substations operation maintenance.
Other courses, he said, were commercial operations (metering, sales invoicing, customer relations and accounting). Nagode commended President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration on its power sector recovery plan, which sought to ensure incremental and uninterrupted power in Nigeria.
The NAPTIN boss said that the event could be perceived in a sense as part of its contributions in fulfilling the Medium-Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) objectives of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.
“The West African Power Pool is a regional body of ECOWAS, which is made up of 29 power utilities of West African States. Its vision is to have a unified regional electricity market in West African through a national power system,’’ the NAPTIN boss added.
One of the Liberian trainees, Mr Wahmah Vigoly, lauded NAPTIN’s wide experience in power training, saying it would impact qualitative and quantitative knowledge on them. Vigoly said that the trainees had the best training facility exposure, adding that the selected privileged trainees would educate their other colleagues in Liberia.
“We will share our experiences and challenges when we get back to our country. We appeal to the NAPTIN management to replicate this training experience gathered in Ijora Centre and the one we will gather at Kanji Dam during our hydropower training,’’ the trainee said.
