OTML hikes training budget to K23 million

OK Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) will increase its spending on training next year to K23.6 million compared to its budget this year of K18.9 million.
This followed a decision it made last year to increase intake of university graduates and apprentices.
University graduates go through a graduate development scheme (GDS), which will increase to 30 next year compared to 23 this year.
Apprenticeship intake would increase to 45 compared to 32 this year and preferred area development intake would increase to 23 from 22 this year.
OTML managing director and chief executive officer Nigel Parker said as a fully-owned PNG company, OTML would like to continue contributing to the development of the country by building its human resource capacity. 
“Being a 100% Papua New Guinea mining company, we feel that we should further improve our training programmes and give more young Papua New Guineans the opportunity to work with us,” Parker said.
“Every year, a substantial amount of mo­ney is invested in our training programmes because we are committed and we are serious in not only developing our own human resources but PNG’s human resource as well,” Parker said.
OTML’s GDS programme started in 1988 and by the end of this year, 369 graduates would have passed through the programme.
Since mining began at Ok Tedi in 1981, a total of 1,111 employees have received sponsorships in study programmes.
 such as the GDS programme and a total of 2,588 employees have received development assistance including international qualifications in trades training.
In operations training, a lot of staff received various specialised skills in areas such as load movement and safety while in corporate training, staff were put though middle management training courses such as OTML’s frontline management and the leadership development programmes.