By NAN
Power sector officials in over 20 countries have been trained by the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN) to boost the delivery of electricity in West Africa and beyond, while darkness still looms over Nigeria, the 6th most populous country in the World.
This was disclosed by NAPTIN Director General Ahmed Nagode, in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday, 23 October 2022.
Some of the benefited West African countries, anccord to Mr. Nagode include Ghana, Liberia, Benin and among others.
The NAPTIN DG also said that the training was sponsored by West African Power Pool (WAPP) and Association of Power Utilities in Africa (APUA).
NAPTIN has trained over 16,000 employees of Gencos, Discos and Transco who are engineers, technicians, craftsmen and others since its inception, according to the Director General.
The DG said, “NAPTIN also trained many from other African countries, including Egypt, Malawi, Eswatini, Benin and others sponsored by WAPP and APUA.
“APUA is a continental body of power utilities of member states. NAPTIN was recognised in 2017 as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in power training by APUA.
“This is under its African Network of Centre of Excellence (ANCEE ) Project, sponsored by African Development Bank (AFDB) and Agence Française de Development (AFD) and which aims at enhancing human capacity building in power utilities.”
The DG said that the institute, so far, had trained about 700 staff of these utilities namely; VRA Ghana, Malawi, Estswani Southern Africa, TCN, while 300 were from distribution companies in Nigeria.
Mr. Nagode noted that trainings by the institute had been able to generate foreign exchange into the nation’s Treasury Single Account(TSA), saying trainings were paid for in euros and dollars.
“Also under NAPTIN being centre of excellence under WAPP, we have trained 65 staff of Liberian Electricity Corporation.These are good cases of knowledge economy as we were able to export knowledge with financial benefits.
“The collaboration has also afforded NAPTIN infrastructural development. APUA bought for NAPTIN a training simulator – OPAL – RT real time power simulator at the value of 100,000 dollars.
“We are hosting a workshop for staff of institute under APUA in Abuja from 24 to 27 of October 2022,” he said.
The Director General said the agency would also train 300 staff in power sector from Botswana and Angola power sector before the close of the year.
Mr. Nagode explained that NAPTIN had impacted the the country’s power sector by providing the much needed human skills that operate and maintain the power infrastructure.
The NAPTIN DG added that the institute had continuously trained existing staff of Nigeria electricity supply Industry with the aim of building a vibrant, effective and efficient workforce.
“Staff of TCN, Ikeja, Eko, Port Harcourt, Jos, Abuja and Ibadan Discos have been trained in various trades in the last one year and others are still coming.
“NAPTIN has also built local contents by training graduates of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, who seek to build career in the Power sector.
“The trainings help to equip them with requisite skills enable them operate on power networks,” Nagode added.
On collaboration, the NAPTIN boss said the institute was collaborating with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to improve safety practices in the power sector.
The DG added that NAPTIN collaboration with NERC has been encouraging, effective and result oriented.
“We jointly reviewed and updated the curricular of Training in Meter Installation and Safety Programmes in line with approved safety codes and meter codes.
“With the official regulatory orders issued on the two. We are also working on updating curriculum in electrical system operation.
“We also patented in designing and developing a Manpower Audit and baseline for staffing in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI),” the DG added.
Nagode, however, commended the Federal Government’s support to NAPTIN with the Agence Française de Development (AFD) facility to build training infrastructure like workshop, simulators, hostel and rehabilitation of its Centres.
He said with such facility would be developing additional courses and institutional upgrade and change management or corporate governance.
Nagode also said that there was need for enabling laws and consolidated training fund.
