Daniel Lim
Brunei LNG Sdn Bhd yesterday held a signing of addendum on the Local Personnel Agreement (LPA) with four local companies to help further strengthen local employment and capabilities.
Brunei LNG’s Director and CEO Hajah Farida binti Dato Seri Paduka Haji Talib was present.
The four companies are Adinin Works and Engineering Sdn Bhd, Tendrill International Sdn Bhd, Zainal Daud Sdn Bhd, and ExcelTech Sdn Bhd.
Managing Director of Adinin Works and Engineering Haji Musa bin Haji Adnin, Managing Director of Tendrill International Haryati binti Haji Ramlee, Managing Director of Zainal Daud Haji Zainal Abidin bin Haji Mohd Daud, and Managing Director of ExcelTech Hafriz Fayadh bin Haji Musa signed the agreement.
Hajah Farida said the agreement represented another milestone in the joint effort to strengthen local employment and capability.
“In the preparation towards our first turnaround in March last year, during the first wave of Covid-19, the closure of borders impacted our ability to bring in the required number of foreign skilled workers to execute our planned activities.”
She said the constraint has since led to a reduction and deferment of activities into 2022 and beyond; and clearly demonstrated how dependent the company was on its ability to secure skilled foreign workers to supplement local capability and to execute planned activities.
However, the challenge has led to Brunei LNG working together with business partners to identify and secure around 30 Bruneian workers within two weeks, she said.
“For me, this clearly demonstrated that we had an opportunity to de-risk future campaigns, especially during prolonged COVID periods which could last multi-years, through a structured campaign of identifying, re-skilling and matching local capability to jobs that will support the execution of our activities for 2022 and beyond.”
In addition, this also presented an opportunity for Brunei LNG, its business partners, and the country to reduce unemployment and to make great strides in a sustainable skilled local workforce.
On July 1, 2021, Brunei LNG agreed to sign an LPA with the companies to accelerate recruitment of Bruneians previously employed by Brunei Shell Petroleum Sdn Bhd (BSP) business partners whose contracts had expired or been early terminated due to revised business strategy.
“Throughout last year, a number of learnings were identified to improve our programme and the key learning was that the recruitment process was constrained by the mismatch of skills and jobs available as well as salary expectations.”
The ceremony not also represents the culmination of the learnings and collaboration with other companies but also local higher institutions to retrain and re-skill business partner personnel to match the skills required to work on Brunei LNG activities.
The signing also marked the launch of its Pilot Apprenticeship Programme scheduled on February 5, under its Social Investment Flagship Employability. “Under this pilot programme, qualified personnel from the main four business partners will undergo training at IBTE and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), fully sponsored by Brunei LNG under its Social Investment Programme,” Hajah Farida added.
