adminPost Correspondent
GREEN FUEL has recruited its second batch of 36 trainee students on industrial on-job training in Chisumbanje that straches for four years.
The interns include seven females and 29 males, who were engaged through the Green Fuel Apprenticeship Training Program.
The apprenticees will be exposed to trades like fitting, machining, instrumentation and control techs; electrical power engineering; millwrighting-(multi-skilled); boiler making; diesel plant fitting; motor mechanics; automobile electricians and motor cycle mechanics.
Green Fuel spokesperson, Mr Raphael Zuze, on Wednesday, said the company’s training programme was designed in response to an acute skills gap currently blighting the country owing to brain drain.
“Green Fuel recognised the hugely detrimental impact this was having on the country and decided to work with the Ministry of Higher Education and Tertiary Development to create an apprenticehip program within the different business units operational within the company. The program is just another part of Green Fuel’s social mandate in rural development and is already in its second year, having had a successful intake in 2014,” said Mr Zuze.
“Most tertiary institutions in the country do not have training programmes tailored to the skillls required for the operation and mantainance of the unique machinery utilised in the ethanol sector and so, in this second phase of the apprenticeship training programme, Zimbabweans are training fellow Zimbabweans, ensuring the retention of local specialised skills.
Mr Zuze added that the company has come a long way in delivering a local fuel solution to Zimbabwe.
“Ethanol is a strategic sector, creating for Zimbabwe the reality that one day the fuel import bill may be totally substituted by a renewable local product for domestic economic growth.
“However, even more critical, is the development of a vibrant human capital base with skills sufficient to steer the sector into regional markets. Machines without skilled personnel cannot the achieve the vision we all yearn for – a vibrant economy underpinned by massive industrial growth in the context of the guiding national blue- print – Zim Asset,” said Mr Zuze.
At the commencement of the ethanol project, the company researched best sugar cane agricultural technologies from Brazil and tailored it for Zimbabwe.
Highly mechanised agricultural production is utilised by the company.
Online Reporter