Swiss Register Limited, Nigeria and the National Association of Safety Professionals of the United States have signed a training and safety process development agreement to domesticate the best training practice and transfer hands-on experience to Nigerians.

The Chief Executive Officer, Swiss Register, Mr Festus Kwode, said the objective was to ensure that every Nigerian understood his right on safety at the work place.

He said, “What we are looking at is occupational health and safety. Occupational means at the workplace and not outside the workplace and it is very important for us to say it is key. We often don’t have these regulations in the country and it is because of lack of knowledge.

“So, we want to drive this as fast as we can across Nigeria and West Africa. So, we decided to look for an organisation that has what is required in terms of knowledge, competencies and the rest. We went as far as the United States of America so as to discuss with the national safety professionals.”

Kwode said he was in the US with his team, where they went through the entire programme, found it interesting and signed a partnership with NASP as it is the only partner in West Africa.

He stated that Nigerians would be trained to become certified and begin to train others.

“The association first said all participants must come to the US for the training but we said it is expensive. So, we have to move the director to Nigeria in person of Eric Gislason who is presently with us going through the training with our trainees. The first set of training is called train the trainers,” he said.

He said about 20 participants were going through the training; some self-sponsored and others from multinational corporations and government agencies.

“We give them two different kinds of training; certified safety manager and the certificate to train others which is called advance level for trainer certificate. At the end of the day, these people will train others in the basic safety practices,” he added.

He said the firm planned to extend the training to universities and high schools, so that students would be equipped with a professional course that could help drive the middle structure of the economy before leaving school.