Expatriates dominate mining artisan workforce
Pini Bothoko | Monday June 29, 2015 15:25
Botswana Chamber of Mines Business Development Project Manager, Joseph Rantshabi, said in a presentation of the mining sector during the northern youth Pitso held in Francistown on Monday that few locals are qualified for the position of artisan.
Artisan jobs are skilled technical workers such as boilermakers, welders, diesel plant fitters.
Rantshabi said that BCM has introduced youth focused programmes to train local youth as artisans so that in a few years to come they would be able to takeover from foreigners.
“At the moment, foreigners are the ones qualified for the jobs. We cannot take chances by employing unqualified locals for these jobs because the mine is a dangerous environment that can be deadly and therefore requires a qualified individual,” he said.
He added that with the heavy plant machines used at the mines they could not risk employing unqualified people to operate them.
He said in addition that there is an increasing interest in exploration in mines, but sadly only a few locals are involved as compared to foreigners. Rantshabi said that by training youth in four to five years they would be able to close the gap and make sure that the mines empower more locals than foreigners.
He said that through the partnership of Botswana and Germany they also have vocational training programmes for artisans, where they have enrolled for the training individuals who just graduated and are not working.
Rantshabi said that the programmes have been ongoing for the past two years and they have trained about 200 graduates who can be engaged in the mining sector.
“There are existing institutions with mining courses, which we have engaged in training those graduates for the mining sector like the Francistown College of Training and Vocational Education (FCTVE) and Gaborone Technical College (GTC),” said Rantshabi.
He said that they have also introduced academic training in which they engage individuals to do engineering courses.
He also said that they have introduced post-training attachment and internship training for individuals who have done mining related courses and are unemployed.
“By engaging them for training, this is not a guarantee that they will be employed by the mine but it will give them exposure and those lucky would be absorbed by the mines,” said Rantshabi.
He said that they have introduced a procurement initiative through the business development, which he currently heads.
Rantshabi said that they also want to strengthen Foreign Development Investors (FDI) in order to attract foreign investors into Botswana.
“We want them to come here, set up businesses and partner with locals so that there could be sustainability. FDI is important to every country. Botswana wants to take advantage of it,” said Rantshabi.
He pleaded with the youth not to be discouraged by the requirements that the mine needs from them when tendering for the job opportunities, but should work hard to provide the quality that they need.“The mining sector is a sensitive environment and as such they would not risk by taking any shortcuts engaging youth businesses that are not credible thus jeopardising the mining employees’ lives,” he said.
Rantshabi said that they deal with start up businesses, mentor the business ideas and help them achieve their business goal.
“We also work with existing companies making various interventions and find out why they are not supplying the mines with their services and help them develop their businesses,” said Rantshabi.
Rantshabi said that like any other sector, mining has challenges like commodity prices, escalating cost of production and the high cost of capital investment, therefore youth who want to venture into mining businesses should be forewarned.