Veta, Arusha Tech to get training equipment from EACOP

TANZANIA: THE East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) has pledged to give the Vocational Education Training Authority (VETA), Northern Zone campus and the Arusha Technical College training equipment, to enable the two to produce world class technical professionals.

The pledge was made here by EACOP’s Local Content Manager Neema Kweka after the tripartite signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to that effect.

“We have closely monitored the performance of the two institutions in training students to become expert engineers and technicians who can and will be employed by strategic projects in our country.

She said EACOP is satisfied with the performance of the two technical institutions in training students and in a manner agreed upon by the parties.

The training is conducted within the requirements of the Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW) programme. The manager said EACOP is meeting a statutory investment requirement relating to local content.

“As we execute this project, we have to observe the law enacted in 2017. The law wants us to give employment priority to Tanzanians in implementing this strategic project.

So, in relation to employment and in cooperation with our seven contractors we expect to employ 7,030 Tanzanians in various sections of the project.

But we are going a step further. We are making intervention relating to training our young people to become world class workers. We are going to continue with this arrangement,” she pledged.

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Based on an agreed arrangement, she explained, the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering (CPP), one of the seven contractors, has to build capacity of Tanzanians by training students and tutors of Arusha-based technical institutions. Training has to be conducted by external experts.

The aim is to build capacity of local engineers so that they can be employed by other strategic projects and have meaningful impact on the growth of the national economy, she explained.

Director of VETA’s Northern Zone Campus, Monica Mbelle, confirmed that authority has already been mandated to train 147 local professionals in identified disciplines.

Mr John Nathani, a tutor at the Arusha Technical College, confirmed that the skills being imparted into the students by the foreign experts have raised sharply their professional level to world class rank.

“This has been a big achievement to us. This training has solved the longstanding problem we have had. We shall now produce world class professionals for our strategic and foreign projects. They will also employ themselves if they so choose,” he said.

He also said tutors have identified things they will use to change the curriculum in order to produce world class professionals in future.

The pipeline, which starts in Hoima District in Uganda, is 1,443-kilometre long. Of these, 1,147 kilometres are in Tanzania while 296 km are in Uganda.

In Tanzania, the pipeline will pass through Kagera, Geita, Shinyanga, Tabora, Singida, Dodoma, Manyara and Tanga Regions.