PTDF moves to curb capital flight, manpower loses, promises zero interference in OSS

Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, said it has initiated a scheme, Split-Site Ph.D, in order to curb capital flight and lose of manpower in its Overseas Scholarship, OSS, programmes.

This was as the Fund vowed zero tolerance for interference, favouritism in the scheme, noting that the entire selection process is based on merit.

The Deputy Manager, Internal Audit, PDTF, Obonin Daddy, Team Lead for Port Harcourt, spoke during the screening exercise for 243 PhD candidates for OSS scholarship for the South-South region at its Centre for Skill Development and Training, CSTD, in Port Harcourt.

Daddy regretted that most of its candidates who befit from the abroad scholarship do not return after their studies and researches, noting that the development amounts to capital flight.

He said that following the development that PTDF has redesigned the programme in away that the beneficiaries return to complete the programme in-country in order to discourage lose of manpower in the oil and gas sector.

He said “You also recall that the PTDF has transited from the full sponsorship of the overseas scholarship scheme into a split-site Ph.D programme, where we sponsor one year overseas and then two years in-country. 

This scheme has necessitated, as a result of a positive fund, which will go a long way in actually building the local institutions in the country and also retaining knowledge gained from the PTDF overseas scholarship scheme.

“As of today, the management of PTDF are drastically pursuing that capital flight reduction. That is why we have come up with the program of the split site. Before today, while we were doing the fully-funded UK PhD program, we had more participants coming into the program to apply for these programs.

“Now, what we discovered often is that most times, by the time they finish this programme, the applicants might either want to stay back or want to get more jobs in the UK.

“But today, we have a reduced number because we are trying as much as possible to reduce that capital flight and then retain the knowledge gained in-country.”

Daddy said that PTDF has zero tolerance on interference, adding that those who were selected for the interview were strictly on merit, the ones that would finally be picked for thr studies would be on merit.

One of the applicants, Mr Alete Godwin, commended the fund for the opportunity and putting up a seamless exercise, stating his research is on extraction of Bioethanol from Municipal Solid Waste in Nigeria.