…Commends EFCC’s handling of local content fund defaulters
By Samuel Ibiyemi
The Federal Government has appointed seven private firms to monitor compliance of International Oil Companies (IOCs), Independent firms and Indigenous firms with the implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act 2010.
Executive Secretary Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) Engineer Simbi Wabote disclosed in his keynote address during the 8th Annual Practical Nigerian Content Conference in Yenagoa that the seven firms were selected as promised to put in place 3rdparty monitors to enhance compliance monitoring in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the industry.
This, he said is in line with the second pillar of the 10-year strategic road map aimed at increasing Nigerian Content level from current levels to 70 per cent by 2027 is tailored along Sections 64 and 65 of the NOGICD Act.
“They were selected after a very thorough tendering and selection process,” he noted.
Industry stakeholders had argued that 8 years after the enactment of the NOGICD Act, in-country capacity building in the oil and gas industry is still low compared with the multi-billion dollars projects executed by indigenous firms during the period.
Wabote disclosed that selection of the third party firms will help to improve monitoring challenges as a result of inadequate staff.
This, he said will enhance transparency and fairness whenever defaulters of Nigerian Content complaince are to be sanctioned in line with the NOGICD Act 2010.
“By 2019, we intend to deepen and widen the roll-out to the third party monitoring service providers for effective monitoring of the 51 operating companies and close to 8,000 oil and gas service providers registered on our NOGIC-JQS. In addition, we will further expand our compliance and enforcement framework to cover Marginal Field Operators, midstream and downstream sectors,” Wabote assured.
In order to boost revenue for distribution to indigenous firms, he disclosed that the NCDMB has commenced the forensic audit of remittances to establish compliance with provision on Nigerian Content Development Fund. He disclosed that the collaboration of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has helped to recover huge amounts from errant companies.
The Executive Secretary said the Board’s 10 Year Strategic Plan is hinged on five (5) pillars and four (4) enablers.
The pillars are: Technical Capability Development, Compliance and Enforcement, Enabling Business Environment, Organisation Capability and Sectorial and Regional Market Linkage.
The four enablers listed by him includes Funding; Regulatory; Environment; Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement and; Research and Statistics
He said: “ Each pillar or enabler is backed with strategic initiatives with a Project Management Office set up to drive implementation. Let me state here that 10 years may appear far off but we have spent the first year on the roadmap and we are left with 9 years to deliver on our journey.”
He explained further that the first year of the journey was used to put in place the foundations that will enhance realization of NCDMB’s target of Nigerian Content levels. However, as at end of 2018, he noted that 30 per cent.
Listing the achievements of NCDMB, Wabote added:’On the Technical Capability Development pillar, we promised to provide support to the Egina FPSO Integration activities to demonstrate that it is possible to integrate FPSO’s in-country. We are happy to report that the integration was achieved and the event represents another dent on claims by naysayers that such feat could not be performed in-country”.
He disclosed that the NCDMB also achieved other feats such as the commencement of infrastructural development of Nigeria’s industrial parks and the International Certification program for 20 Marine personnel.
