In a bid to reduce the effect of fire disaster and safeguard lives and property in Rivers State, indigenous oil giant, Belemaoil Producing Ltd has acquired a state-of-the-art fire fighting facility. This is as the company trained and certified 30 personnel, drawn from its host communities on various fire fighting skills to render rescue services to the public.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the fire fighters at the company’s corporate headquarters in Port Harcourt the Executive Vice President, Admin/HR/Corporate Affairs, Belemaoil Producing Ltd, Mrs Rosemary C. Asiegbu, stated that the company was the first indigenous oil company that was ensuring the full implementation of its HSE campaign.
She said with the successive conclusion of the training and the setting up of the world-class fire fighting facility, Belemaoil was set to support efforts by the government in combating fire outbreak in the state.
Asiegbu said the initiative was part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility to the people of the state where it operates.
She said: “We are an indigenous company. If you check out, we are the first indigenous oil company that is going head on to ensuring that we implement our HSE not only to make sure that our immediate environment and our staff are safe, we are ensuring that our neighbouring environment, beyond our immediate environment will also benefit from our strives.
“What informed this, is our social responsibility and our HR Drive and HSE campaign. We wanted to step up our HSE campaign to make sure that our environment will be safe. Just as our Belemaoil Model is inclusive of the host communities in making sure that their social and economic wellbeing will be improved. If you check all our environs, there is no firefighting equipment around, even beyond up to the Government House. And our President in his vision makes sure that everybody will be happy and benefit from what they should.”
The EVP, who congratulated the Founder/President of Belemaoil Producing Ltd, Mr Jack-Rich Tein Jr., for his strive in developing host communities, she pointed out that fire fighting is a noble profession though challenging. She said the training will be a continuous process to ensure that the trainees acquire more skills in fire fighting and rescue.
She advised the fire fighters, saying, “ Fire fighting is a serious job, serious because you will always be prepared. You will always be expected to train and be fit all the time. If you are on duty or you are not on duty you are supposed to be prepared because something might come up and the people on duty, might not be able to cope with it. Automatically, you will be drafted to be in charge.
“Again, to be a fire fighter is a multi-faceted job in the sense that your job will not just concentrate on saving the human and material assets. Fighters, are bold, fire fighters must have the sanity when it comes to taking decisions because if you are not careful on the decision you take, that might even cause more disaster. So fire fighters are looked upon as potential heroes because they are supposed to do what normal people are not supposed to do under normal circumstances.”
In his closing remarks, the Director, Production and Engineering, Belemaoil Producing Ltd, Mr. Mufaa Welsh, described the event as successful. He pointed out that the training is a show of confidence and the love that the Founder/President of Belemaoil, Mr. Jackrich Tein Jr. has for the people.
He said the training will be a continuous process for the fire fighters even when they are on the job, adding that they were being trained by TDI, a company from the United States of America.
Speaking earlier during the demonstration of skills by the graduands, the Chief Fire Trainer, Gary Eve said the graduands had been adequately trained and certified to provide rescue and fire fighting services
He said they were trained in the area of fire attack skills, changing hose pattern, among others. He informed that all the graduands have acquired basic fire fighting skills and are certified to be deployed to undertake such task.
Some of the trained fire fighters expressed gratitude to the Founder and President of Belemaoil Producing Ltd, Jack-Rich Tein Jur for empowering them to save life and property in the state.
One of the graduands, Gibson Okuroma, in his vote of thanks said “I never dreamt of it and no member of my crew dreamt of it. Other multinationals never go down to the grassroots to ask persons who have not dreamt of been in the city or being a fire fighter to come out and be trained. I thank Belemaoil for going to the local communities to pick people to give them a noble profession”, he stated.
Highpoint of the event was the presentation of certificates to the graduands for successfully completing one month training on fire fighting and rescue skills.