Local agency partners British counterpart in oil, gas industry
A Ghanaian community agency at Atuabo in the Western Region, Sominu Manpower Services, has entered into partnership with a UK-based company, Swift Worldwide Resources (SWR), to set up and operate a manpower agency that would supply trained Ghanaian workers to the oil and gas industry.
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Essence of the initiative
The Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr Benjamin Dagadu, announced this at a cocktail organised by SWR in collaboration with the British High Commission in Accra.
“This event comes at a time when the government has passed the local content and local participation regulations and they are about to be implemented,” he said.
According to Mr Dagadu, the initiative “is one that we see as not only complying with the regulations but embracing the spirit of the regulations to ensure that there is equitable and shared growth in prosperity between the community and the SWR, as the international partner, by developing the skills base of the community within the structure of a sustainable business model”.
“What we particularly respect about this venture is that the community profits would be reinvested into training programmes for the community to enable them to, over time, acquire the skills necessary to compete for more technical positions,” he said.
Mr Dagadu, therefore, encouraged upstream and service companies to give Sominu Manpower Services the opportunity to bid for subcontracts as it appropriated its resources to supply the necessary skilled and trained Ghanaian personnel.
Swift World Resource
The Chief Executive of SWR, Mr Tobias Read, expressed delight at the partnership, and gave assurance that his company would be committed to working with local partners towards the development of the country’s economic growth.
Swift is the leading specialist supplier of manpower resources to the global oil and gas industry. With over 25 years’ focus exclusively on this sector, it has a database of 30,000 skilled personnel, a logistics infrastructure spanning the globe and ISO-accredited quality procedures.
According to Mr Read, SWR is also committed to investing in the local community and “takes great pride in its ability to recruit, train and develop its national team of workers”.
He said the company provided services ranging from personnel selection to complete mobilisation in countries as diverse as Azerbaijan, Australia, China and the US, adding that SWR currently had over 3,000 contractors in active placements across 23 offices in 35 countries.
Commitment of the British government
The British High Commissioner in Accra, Mr Peter Jones, expressed the commitment of the British government to support the development of Ghana’s economy.
He, therefore, urged the partners involved and Ghanaians to support the initiative, since it would not only bring transformation to the local community in Atuabo but the whole nation at large.