The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), is set
to commence a forensic audit into its $200 million Nigerian Content
Development Fund (NCDF).
Executive Secretary, NCDMB, Mr. Simbi Wabote, gave the hint while
speaking on the theme “Driving Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Industry towards
Sustained Economic Development & Growth at the Nigerian Oil and Gas
(NOG) Conference, Nigerian Content Seminar which opened in Abuja
yesterday.
NOGICD Act of 2010 gave the Nigerian Content Development and
Monitoring Board (NCDMB), the mandate to manage the Nigerian Content
Development fund (NCDF) and deploy it for projects, programmes and
activities directed at increasing Nigerian content in the oil and gas
industry.
The Act equally provides that one percent of every contract in the
upstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry shall be deducted
at source and paid into the fund.
Speaking at the forum, Wabote warned that if the Board discovers any
sabotage in the remittance of the one percent NCDF charge, it will not
hesitate to hand over the defaulting company to the EFCC.
He regretted that despite efforts of the Board to ensure the success
of the local content in the country, some international Oil Companies
were in the habit of coming up with excuses why the local content
cannot be achieved.
‘All forms of sabotage are being brought against us, we will stand our
ground to ensure that local content is achieved at all cost, “he said
operating companies under its joint Qualification Scheme (JQS) are 46
companies in all, while the service companies are 7,184 with
individual registrations at 114, 743.
Wabote while highlighting the 10 strategies which he promised to work
on to increase national capacity over a 5-year period, said the Board
was making progress in that regard.
“Today, I want to provide progress status of those strategies in line
with my conviction that yearly seminars and conferences like this
should also be used to provide and receive feedback on actions taken
or promises made to make the events worthwhile, Permit me to provide
very brief highlights on the status as follows,”.
On stakeholders’ collaboration to overcome key challenges on skills
gap, weak sectoral linkages, policy inconsistency and other issues,
Wabote said the Board had engaged Petroleum Technology Development
Fund (PTDF) and Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) to streamline its
areas of intervention in human capacity building.
We have engaged NNPC-NAPIMS on in-country capacity utilization. Other
stakeholders engaged by the Board include; NEPZA, NCAA, OPTS, IPPG,
DPR, and others.
“Strategy No.2 was to fast track the establishment of 5 oil and gas
parks. We have commenced site developments works on two of the parks
in Bayelsa and Cross River states. Architectural and detailed
engineering design works are on going for the parks in the Akwa-Ibom
and Imo States. Land acquisition are in progress for the ones in Delta
and Edo states. In line with the directive of the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources, we are looking at the establishment of
similar parks in other geo-political zones of the country.
For the third strategy on Nigerian Content Opportunities Fair (NOGOF),
we held the maiden edition in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state and we have
published the compendium of opportunities in the oil and gas industry
as promised.
On Strategy No.4, we promised to hold the R&D Fair. This was done in
September 2017 in Lagos with a very resounding success. Some of the
actions from the Fair are being implemented as I speak.