100-Man Igam Accommodation

A groundbreaking ceremony was held today at Igam Barracks for the construction of a 100-man accommodation; a project that will “kill two birds with one stone”.

The project, funded by the Australian Defence Cooperation program, will address the two issues of accommodation and capacity building.

This follows today’s signing of a memorandum of understanding with Hornibrook NGI.

PNGDF director engineers, Lieutenant Colonel John Giregire, said this will boost their capacity considering the PNGDF’s trade training unit has been closed for over a decade.

“So we’ve never qualified our tradesmen throughout the years,” he stated. “Right now this concept is to, with the industries – in this case, Hornibrook – qualify the tradesmen.

“To be a qualified tradesman, you have to be on the job, and a qualified supervisor, approved by NATTB (National Apprenticeship and Trade Testing Board) will have to sanction that. Hornibrook has got that qualification so we are using the project to also qualify our tradesmen.”

Lt Col Giregire said they ran a few Australian-funded “block courses” that took four years, however, he added that the “project is a better way”.

Author: 
Carmella Gware