As Nigerians are expectant that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) would be passed into law before end of this year with the attendant transformation and restructuring of some existing processes, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has earnestly started training its workforce in preparation for the changes that would come with the passage of PIB.
The corporation hired the services of an American-based consultancy firm – New Generation Consulting Resources and Solutions (NGCRS) based in Cresco, Pennsylvania, USA, to train the NNPC staff to be adaptable to the new NNPC that would come with passage of the bill.
The corporation organised a weeklong training in Lagos for select staff drawn from its different departments and The Nation spoke with the Principal Consultant of NGCRS, Dr. Njideka Kelley on some of the issues.
Kelley said: “The training is on change, reform and transparency and the participants are mid level to higher up cadres. As you know with the intended Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), NNPC has been very proactive in training their staff on change. The training would be able to reform the corporation because the PIB will restructure the NNPC and with all of that, the highlight will be on transparency because that is what will sustain the change and the reform practices that will come to NNPC. The first training we had for the NNPC was on improving organisational security, which was last year and we are taking the training to Delta State later this year for the Asaba Chamber of Commerce.”
On the compliance level of the participants to the intended change, she said: “when we started on the first day, they had mixed feelings on whether change will truly be possible in NNPC considering where the country is coming from and what the society’s mindset is in terms of what constitutes value but by the time we rounded off, the level of compliance had improved tremendously.
“The participants were a great group, very awesome, they were willing to learn. They gave their own assessment and feedback. The class was very participatory-oriented, with methodology in discussions, case studies and lectures, so as we give theories, we also give practical, which are real life examples. The participants were very compliant.”
On whether there are plans to have an overseas part of this training so that participants can see what their counterparts in other developed countries do in terms of transparency, she said, we have not discussed that with NNPC but it is definitely worth giving a trial.
The NGCRS chief advised the management of NNPC to continue to invest in their human capital development, which she noted doesn’t just mean sending them to training but also doing internal reviews and making sure that the resources that they put in towards training is received back through the application of the duties, functions, interpreting the core values.
“In other words, the management has to make sure that the participants are assessed through tests and periodic reviews, examination, among others internally to ensure that the money the corporation spent to receive these principles are also received back by the staff by way of periodic reviews and application. All of these have to be inculcated into NNPC,” she added.
To inculcate the right principle in the country’s workforce, the first is to create awareness, she said, adding you have to understand change by knowing and accepting that you want a change. You have to understand that you have a problem and want to solve it that is the first step. In keeping a change sustainable, you keep on emphasising where you were, where you are going, and where you are now. NNPC is not the way it was 20 years ago. There have been improvements, which have been developmental because they keep improving on them. But where we are going is a transformational change, she said.
She also said the training would certainly bring a change that would make the corporation as competitive as other state owned oil companies such Statoil and Petrobras. “Because NNPC has recognised that there is a problem that needs to be solved and part of it is a cultural problem. It lies in the core values and principles of NNPC and the country as a whole because it is not news that Nigeria has social problem, which corruption is at the top. NNPC being a government entity is perceived to be part of that corruption. This may be true or false but if we want to take it from that point of view, we can say that NNPC is doing all that it can within its power to change given the external influences that sometimes are not conducive to business.
“This is the reason they are investing in their human capital and make sure that people begin to understand that it will no longer be business as usual especially when the PIB is passed into law. The reformatory practices have to be put in place. They have to be transformed and that is the key. They must be transparent and those core values must have to be revisited. NNPC has to go back to the drawing board and look at the ways they had been doing business, look at their operations and technology and see how all of that will influence their bottomline and will start to make profit. To achieve this they have to streamline many things.”
