By CHRIS OCHAYI

ABUJA – The Federal Government has assured Nigerians of the availability of sufficient indigenous manpower for the 10 new National Integrated Power Plants, NIPPs, being commissioned across the country.

The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, gave the assurance in Abuja, at the first graduation ceremony of trained power engineers from the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria, NAPTIN. He explained that the assurance stems from the success of government’s capacity development programme for the power sector.

He said the graduation of the first set of 243 engineers by the Institute was a big milestone on the road to achieving efficient and reliable local content in the unfolding revolution in the new power sector.

The minister said there was no fear of redundancy for the high caliber of engineers being produced under NAPTIN’s Graduate Skills Development Programme. He said there was a great need of them in the now privatised generation and distribution companies, the NIPPs, as well as at the Transmission Company of Nigeria, where some of the young engineers had already been engaged.

Nebo said the products of the Institute were the critical mass of skilled manpower needed to take Nigeria to her envisaged place among the 2-20 most developed nations by the Year 2020.

In his address earlier, the Director General of NAPTIN, Mr. Reuben Okeke, affirmed that the graduate progamme was designed to act as a systematic interventionist approach to the grand plan of meeting the nation’s manpower needs in the energy sector.

He commended the Minister of Power for intervening to secure appropriate job placements for some of the graduates.

He explained that following the launch of the programme in September 2012, over 1,530 applications were received nationwide with a total about 243 graduate trainees eventually admitted and enrolled.

The DG explained that while some were under their state government’s sponsorship, a good number also came on private or self sponsorship.

The 243 NAPTIN trainees graduated at the event span across the power chain with 92 from generation, 79 from transmission and 72 from distribution.