Engr Simbi WaboteSecretary of NCDMB, Mr Simbi Wabote

The management of NCDMB wishes to use this medium to intimate members of the public, particularly Oil and Gas Industry stakeholders that despite the disruptive effect of Coronavirus (COVID 19) in Nigeria and globally, critical operations and services offered by the Board will continue unabated.

Although we have scaled down the size and spread our operations by reducing direct person to person contacts, the Board still responds to all essential service requests with required agility.

Currently, our staff from SS2 down now work from home in line with the directive of the Head of Service of the Federation, but our management staff and personnel who provided essential services have continued to work remotely to meet stakeholders’ needs and service requests.

To ensure business continuity despite the two weeks lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States as well as restrictions across several states in Nigeria, the Board has triggered its Crisis Management Team (CMT) to handle urgent pending matters, address emerging issues and provide requisite service to the public.

The CMT comprises Heads of Directorates, Divisions and Departments (DDDs) and staff, who provide essential services. The Executive Secretary is the Crisis Commander.

The CMT meets every morning at 10:00am Monday – Sunday. The three main focus areas of the CMT in these precarious times are: Staff Wellbeing, Business Continuity and Special Interventions in support of government’s response to the spread of the COVID 19 pandemic.

  1. Staff Wellbeing

As a responsible public sector organization, we recognize that the Board has duty of care toward staff. This duty includes and extends to ascertaining the state of health of our staff and their family members.

This also involves propagating required health awareness and ensuring that our staff and their family are in compliance with all safety precautions and regulations enacted to mitigate the spread of COVID 19 pandemic.

  1. Business Continuity

In addition to internal adjustments by NCDMB to ensure continued service delivery to the public, we are engaging leaders of service companies under the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) on possible institutional supports for the service companies to ensure resilience and prevent job losses after the COVID 19 pandemic, considering the steep fall in crude oil price.  Details of the discussion and protocol to achieve these objectives will be made public as they crystalize.

  1. Special Interventions

The Board is galvanizing oil and gas service companies to come together to support ongoing measures to contain the spread of COVID 19 and fight off the pandemic.

The Board has also sponsored radio jingles and TV advertorials that are currently running to propagate and deepen public awareness on the hygiene measures for effective containment of COVID 19 spread in Nigeria.

Signed

Engr. Wabote simbi (FNSE)

Executive Secretary, NCDMB