The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has partnered with the Kafue Regional Training Centre (KGRTC) in Zambia to boost skills development and innovation in the energy sector.
Yesterday, a delegation from ZESA led by Fortune Sambo, a consultant from the ZESA chairman’s office, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the KAFUE Regional Training Centre to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the energy sector in both countries.
The agreement will see ZESA through its National Training Centre benefiting from skills exchange programmes with KGRTC and its affiliate training institutions.
While the ZESA chairman, Dr Sydney Gata, was unable to attend the signing, he sent his support through Mr Sambo, Zesa Head of Corporate Services, Mr Antony Mutambirwa, Zesa Holdings Group Training and Development Manager, Mr Ladislous Mhango, and two others.
“Kafue will start by dispatching trainers to Zimbabwe for protection training within the next month, thereafter we will embark on training the trainer programmes for our facilitators to allow skills transfer.
“While doing this our trainers will be working with the Kafue facilitators (understudies) as part of the skills transfer programme,” Mr Ladislous Mhango, Zesa Holdings Group Training and Development Manager said.
The agreement lays out a framework for the two organisations to share knowledge and expertise, to modernise and transform the energy sector.
Mr Mhango said the programme dovetails well with the organisation’s commitment to establishing the ZESA National Training Centre as a centre of excellence in renewable energy and climate change.
“Kafue has also identified areas of strength where we will immediately assist them with skills and expertise and this includes areas of drone training and certification, thermal power generation etc.
“Benefits will include the ability to benefit from the latest training technologies at Kafue for Zimbabwe and the ability to benefit from skilled manpower from Zimbabwe for Kafue,” he added.
Mr Mhango said the next stage will involve the adoption of identified programmes of interest from the Kafue calendar which they have included on their training calendar.
“Once this is done we will be receiving support from Kafue in terms of facilitators for these programmes who will in turn bring the latest technology and training techniques to conduct the training in Zimbabwe.
“The other benefit for us is that we will be able to access training support through some of the Kafue partners such as the Association of Power Utilities Africa(APUA).”
This partnership, Mr Mhango said, will also aid the country’s drive to become a centre of excellence in renewable energy and climate change.
“Zimbabwe has suffered from massive skills flight and we want to address this dilemma by providing the much-needed skills training to our employees.”
- Courtesy of the Zimbabwean newspaper 'The Herald'