Africa-Press – Eswatini. The Construction Industry Council in partnership with the University of Eswatini has equipped Bio-Medical staff members from the Ministry of Health with project management skills.
This was done through a 10 day training held at Esibayeni Lodge where a group of 10 participants received certificates at the end of the training exercise. CIC Chief Executive Officer Maqhawe Mnisi, in his remarks when closing the workshop, said the CIC was implementing a Contractor Development Strategy which is the council’s blueprint in driving training and capacity building initiatives for the industry.
He said rolling out of the CDS this current financial year provided council with an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of initiatives that were the heartbeat of the industry.
He extended their appreciation to the World Bank for sponsoring CIC with funds to host the training. “As a result the council has significantly increased funding and intake of participants towards industry training and capacity building initiatives this financial year,” Mnisi stated.
He added that delivering on quality infrastructure, within cost and time was an expectation for project owners who invested significant amounts of money into infrastructure projects while contractors and consultants required the necessary skills to be able to deliver on construction projects.
He said that is what the CIC was there for. He said theirs was to facilitate a conducive environment to ensure that both parties were able to deliver as per their contractual obligations to the socio-economic benefit of the country at large in terms of jobs created, value for money on investments and increased capability by contractors to execute more efficiently, or on more higher valued and more complex projects.
“The upskillling of industry stakeholders in project management is one of the key interventions that will have a positive impact in ensuring that the construction business not only grows over time but also becomes sustainable,” Mnisi stated.
He said it was for this reason that they had since partnered with UNESWA and CTC to ensure that they addressed some of the skills gap they had identified as priority for building capacity. He said council had shown its commitment through sponsoring a total of 10 industry players’ participants and allocating a budget of E265 000 which was World Bank funded.
Confidence
UNESWA Pro-Vice Chancellor Henry Gadaga said such an initiative fitted in the university’s strategic objectives including relevant short courses for stakeholders and also to be responsive to national needs.
He said the foregoing course was tailor-made for Bio-med staff from the ministry of health working in construction in the health facilities and clinics.
He added that he understood that courses on basic leadership, human resource management, organisational structure improvement, effective communication and basic computer skills were needed and the university, through the CTC would make all efforts to prepare for those.
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