BAM Nuttall delivers UK training for Sierra Leone Water Rehabilitation Project
Leading construction and engineering company BAM Nuttall has brought seven local operatives, from its Freetown Water Rehabilitation project in Sierra Leone, to the CITB’s National Construction College (NCC) to complete excavator and lifting operations training.
With the project being undertaken on behalf of the Department for International Development, all works must be completed to UK standards. To ensure the correct levels of competency and allow BAM Nuttall to employ local residents, seven operatives were chosen to attend the NCC in Bircham Newton, Norfolk. For all seven operatives this was the first time they had left Sierra Leone.
Three of the operatives completed training on excavators, both tracked and wheeled, while the other four operatives passed the lifting operations programme, comprising a week of slinger signaller training, a week working with lorry mounted HIABs and two weeks of mobile crane operations.
‘This is really important to the Freetown Water Rehabilitation project’, says Ross Cawthorne, general foreman on the project. ‘We have no real way of showing competency in Sierra Leone and there’s no training like this in Africa. This is life changing for the guys from Sierra Leone. They now have a proven European certificate of training and any employer, once we leave the country, would look at that very positively. I think they would be chosen for projects by other companies within Sierra Leone.’
Before starting on any plant operations, the operatives spent two days in the CITB’s state of the art simulator room, becoming familiar with the controls and allowing trainers to assess their competency.
Braden Connolly, Director of Products and Services at CITB, says: ‘It’s been a pleasure to host the learners from the Freetown Water Rehabilitation project. I hope that the NCC’s outstanding training and technology will have a positive impact on not only the operatives’ careers but also their community in Sierra Leone.’
Freetown Water, a consortium of IMC Worldwide, BAM and Atkins is designing and implementing the rehabilitation of the water network of Freetown, finishing in 2019. The aim is to improve the living situation for the citizens of Freetown through better public service delivery of fresh, clean water. The impact of this will be to increase sustainable access to safe water in Freetown and reduce the risk of climate-related events as well as morbidity and mortality rates linked to waterborne and vector-linked diseases.
This programme is providing a complete service from feasibility and design to construction and handover. National contractors are employed, where appropriate, in order to improve the sustainability of the programme. A joint office has been established in Freetown with GVWC to oversee the project and build local capacity. The project will be handed over to the GVWC by August 2019.
An initiative of the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL), specifically the Ministry of Water Resources and the Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC) this programme is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
BAM has a worldwide reputation for delivering some of the most complex and challenging civil engineering projects and in the UK has delivered several significant schemes that are helping to shape modern Britain. Royal BAM Group has a diverse range of customers in both public and private sector with an annual turnover of £5 billion across all sectors employing approximately 20,000 people.
Within the UK BAM Nuttall delivers significant civil engineering schemes in rail, marine, tunnelling, highways, remediation and water sectors, working with both its UK sister and European group companies to provide a complete service. BAM’s collaborative approach to delivery of challenging multidisciplinary projects includes Network Rail Frameworks, HS1, Crossrail, Borders Rail, London 2012 Olympics and LU Station upgrades.
CITB is the Industrial Training Board (ITB) for the construction industry in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). CITB uses its research and labour market intelligence to understand the sector’s skills needs, and works with industry and government to make sure construction has the right skills, now and for the future.
CITB is modernising its funding approach to invest in areas that will deliver the best returns for industry, and enable the sector to attract and train talented people to build a better Britain.
