Keynote Speech for The Brunei Shell JV Vendor Forum 2012 By YB ...

contract from the main companies.The Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan ofNegara Brunei Darussalam are not just leaving it to the industry to providetrainings for the current and future local workforce. The efforts include: -Firstly, introducing schemes for those interested to pursue furtherstudies at local institutions where the costs are either fully or partly covered bythe Government through the Economic Planning Development Department,there are also tax rebates scheme offered by the Ministry of Finance in additionto the Ministry’s scheme to encourage employment of locals through partialfunding of salaries and so on.Secondly, with the cooperation and supports from various Ministriesincluding the Ministry of Education and the companies such asPetroleumBRUNEI, BSP and TOTAL, we are preparing the Energy IndustryCompetency Framework (EICF), a document that will be used as a guide inpreparing courses that offers training syllabuses that are more akin to what theindustry needs, thus ensuring greater marketability for our fresh graduates andtrainees, and at the same time, providing the industry with ready and capableworkforce. This document will be ready by end this year for implementationnext year. The EICF will provide the standards that we want from the courses –all must adhere to this standard. Let’s be transparent here, if we were to allowfreedom for any company to set up training centre without taking intoconsideration our own national’s agenda – their actions and self-interests maybe in conflict and have unwanted impact on our efforts.Thirdly, toward providing up-to-date teaching facilities, we are alsoplanning to set up new technical institutions through Private Public Partnershipcatered specifically for the oil and gas industry. Apart from developing up-todatetechnical skills, we also want to develop new skills as well, such as thosefor seafarers to levels that are recognised internationally by the International10