Partnership formed for health and safety in oil and gas industry

-warning issued about `Caribbean laid back attitude’

Caribbean Surgery Inc. (CSI) has partnered with a Canadian-based company – Safework Solutions – to launch the Caribbean Safework Solutions Inc. (CSSI) and head of the CSI, Dr. Surendra Persaud says that Guyanese need to change their “Caribbean laid back attitude” if they are going to work for the oil and gas industry.

At the launching of the event at the Cara Lodge hotel last evening, Persaud noted that the company is a fully incorporated Guyanese company and is a “majority woman-owned company.”

“The ExxonMobil oil find offshore Guyana has the potential, and I say has potential, to positively impact on every single Guyanese. However, as Guyanese we need to recognise something – this is a new industry to us all and we will need to find methods that fast-track our ability to meet the needs of this industry,” Persaud said, while noting that the industry is different from all the others the country has experienced before and does not have the patience that Guyanese have been accustomed to.

He said that those who are trying to work in the industry need to recognise that the people will have to change to meet the industry’s needs and not the other way around.

“Unfortunately we have experienced where placing Guyanese in the business ...they are not adapting. This is a business where folks work for 12 hours a day for 28 days, they don’t know when it’s Sunday… Their deadline is that they need it done yesterday and we as Guyanese need to adapt to that and our Caribbean laid back attitude of sixish and twelveish is not going to work for this industry,” he said, while stating that as a result of the much needed change and capacity building for the citizens, Guyana needs to find a way to collaborate with individuals and companies that have experience in the industry; and know what it needs.

“[We need] someone who actually wants to invest in us and Guyana, transfer those skills to us and Guyana and actually participate in the building of Guyana and Guyanese businesses. Today we are most grateful to the Canadian High Commission who created the wonderful business

matchmaking opportunities that allowed this partnership,” Persaud added.

The company will reportedly be the first internationally recognised health, safety and environmental (HSE) firm in the country and will help in promoting the HSE practices that are recognised globally for the industry.

The company will specialise in training persons to their standards based on their custom-made programmes that are applied in over 15 countries, which has seen an excess of 98,000 persons trained over a 15-year period.

According to Jeff Daniels, CEO of Safeway Solutions, they will work in and around issues associated with confined spaces, working at heights and hazardous materials.

Also present at the launch was Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana Lilian Chatterjee also delivered brief remarks and highlighted that the joint venture between the two companies is testament to the memorandum of understanding that was recently signed between Newfoundland and Labrador and Guyana for cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

The first batch of students who graduated from the company’s first training programme were also awarded their certificates of completion. Those who graduated are: Brian Seecharran, Chaitram Persaud, Howard Sam, Ishwar Parbhu, Jamal Lewis, Joel Jackson, Vibert Lam, Navin Daby and Ramnarine Bhagwandas.