Water Taxi Scheme Trainees Appeal For Absorption Into Civil Service

A group of Rivers State indigenes numbering about 19, under the aegis of trainees trained by the state government on water taxi scheme in Portugal in 2010, have appealed to the State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara to absorb them into the civil service.
It would be recalled that on November 27, 2010, the then state government under former Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi sent 20 indigenes of the State to Portugal for training on the technical ability to manage its water taxis.
The trainees were trained in two categories as skippers and engineers. However, 14 years after, the trainees are yet to be absorbed into the civil service under the Ministry of Transportation to showcase their training expertise.
Speaking to journalists in Port Harcourt over the weekend on behalf of the affected trainees, Engr Agia Ibikari Barasua in company of Engr Bobmanuel Tekena, Engr Lemmy Praise Machismo and Capt. Geoffrey Johnson appealed to the state Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara to look into their matter and absorb them into the civil service as life has been unbearable to them.

He said that the scheme was a making of the state government an managed by the ministry of Transportation , adding that the then Commissioner for Transport Hon George Tolofari and the permanent secretary, Mr Gogo Isong were the drivers of the one month training scheme in Portugal .
He averred that the state government had promised them that they will be absorbed and deployed to the marine Transport Department in the Ministry of transport upon the return back to the state at the end of the training excise.
Ibikari however, noted that since their returned from Portugal efforts made by them for the state government to absorbed them into the civil service by the previous government had not been fruitful.
He told Journalists that they have lost one of their colleague and others are struggling to cope with the economic hardship and appealed to Governor Siminalayi Fubara to look into their plights and so as to enlist them into the civil service scheme.
“Some of us were working before were selected for the training by the state government with all assurances that will regularise our employment status when we are back but since them but we have about three or four of them that were nominated from the ministry of transport and immediately they are still working till now but for us nothing has happened” he stated.

Akujobi Amadi