The Nigerian Content Development Management Board (NCDMB) has said that the board has been able to raise the nation's content index from 0% where it was to 25% within eight years.
The Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Engineer Simbi Kasiye, said this yesterday in Lagos at a One day sensitization seminar on "Local content development in shipping, oil and gas logistics operations in Nigeria", organized by the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN).
Explaining further, the DG who was represented by the General Manager, Corporate Communication, NCDMB, Dr. Ginah Olonyo, also reiterated the board’s commitment to push the index up till 70%.
He also said that the board was able to achieve that because of proactive implementation of the Act.
According to him, "If you come to the Nigerian content index, before the coming of the Act, the retention, Nigerian content value was almost at 0%. It was so bad that even leaking marine vessels were taken to Abadin to go and fix them. And it was at the expenses of the government. But today this value is standing at about 25% and it is pushing upwards. The reason is that because of the proactive implementation of the act we have been able to come this far. If we say that the Nigeria local content index is 25% it simply means for every 100billion Dollars sent to the industry we have 25billion Dollars kept in-country".
He also advised that if such a step is taking on the Egina FPSO, it will be of a very big economic benefit for the country.
"So, if we apply it to our flagship project which, the Egina project which is worth about 16billion Dollars, we are saying that for this project alone we are keeping about 4billion Dollars and don't forget, 16billion Dollars is more than the county's budget. That will give you an idea of what is coming in through the board. That is quite an achievement for us and we are looking forward to pushing this to 70%", he added.
The DG also said that, that the oil servicing pipes in the country has grown old even as he added that the board has been able to establish companies that will see the manufacturing of new pipes to replace these old ones.
He said that oil spillage is not only the function sabotage but as also a case of old and rotten pipes.
"Nigerians, we are like slaves in the industry and within this short period of eight years, the board has achieved so much in the industry. We all know that the network of pipes servicing the oil and gas industry today; they have all expired and you know the pipes all have their expiry date.
Most of the pipelines you see today were laid like 50 years ago. So they are collapsing just out of old age and not only sabotaged, sabotage is one part of the story. So as a proactive organization, we started the initiative of building capacity in pipes in Nigeria. Today as we speak we have two long pipe miles in Nigeria fully functional and more are coming. One is in Lagos and the other one is in Abuja", he disclosed.
Also speaking on the issue of capacity building, he said that the board is still the highest in the area of training.
"On the issue of training no organization in Nigeria has done more training like the content board. This is partly because it is our mandate to do so. And to shift from policy to law the act is telling us because before now during the Obasanjo era we used to have it as policy in the NNPC.
And because it was a policy, achievement was very difficult but now it is a law"
He said that the board has more than six million manpower in terms of training, adding that the training is vital to ensure that the Nigerian graduates are employable.
"And to help in the training part of it, the Act said that there must be training components on the part of every project with the advent of this law. We have been effectively implementing that part of the law, we have more than 6million manpower in terms of training. Why this is relevant is that one of our Vice Chancellors said about 70% of our graduates are not employable. This is very correct, the education sector the standard has collapsed", he concluded.
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