The estimated 13 billion dollars that would be sunk into Uganda’s Oil Production stage was a magnetic to many investors looking for opportunity among whom were the Scottish. A team from Aberdeen Scotland was here to attempt to cement ventures strongly inclined towards training for the Oil Refinery and the Pipeline as the lowest hanging float. “To build that you need 200,000 people. And there is an assistance that it is built using local content Ugandans to deliver this. And so, therefore, we find that there are no many technically skilled people here and we are here to help, we are here to support Uganda to build up its technical skills assets.” Said, Ian Ross – Scottish Development International.

One of the local attributes in attempting to raise a critical number of certified artisans for the whole project. And the Scottish team claimed this was where they wanted to focus their energies first. “We are looking at two sets of training first; one is the short-term training for projects which look to take on a lot of people quickly and of course over the 2 ½ years of the project life we will need to be training skills of welding, electrical instrumentation. We will need to ensure that high level; technical training skills such as production operations, process operators are prepared, trained and competent. And so when the infrastructure is eventually completed, you are then able to deliver those components into the lifecycle of the project.” Said, James Murphy – Scottish Energy Partnership. In terms of local content, the artisans and related skills are immediate benefits to Uganda but the number needed and timelines require speed, lest the jobs go to foreigners.