Patience Saghana
Going by its experience of which the insurance industry is paying for today, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and the entire insurance industry are appealing to the federal government to speed up regulations on the Nigerian Local Content Act 2010.

Though basking in the elation of the Act, insurance regulator and practitioners have implored the Minister of Petroleum Resources to expedite action on the regulation that would enable proper implementation of the Nigerian Local Content Act.

Mallam Ibrahim Hassan, Deputy Commissioner for Insurance Technical at the one day seminar on the ‘Nigeria oil & gas development Act’ in Lagos last weekend, said that the key challenge to the implementation of the Act is regulation.

According to him, “A major implementation challenge is availability of the regulation required to be made under the Act. By section 104 of the Act, the Minister of Petroleum Resources is required to make regulation that will bring into force the provisions of the Act. How soon this regulation is made will to a large extent determine the effectiveness of the Act”

Recounting the industry experience of delay is dangerous; Hassan called to mind the experience of the industry with respect to the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

He recalled, “The Minister of Labour was given power under section 40 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act to make regulation(s) that will bring into effect the compulsory insurance provision of the Act. To date the Minister of Labour has failed to make the regulation(s) thereby frustrating the good intention of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. It is hoped that the case of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Content Development Act (NCD) will be different”

In general, the deputy Commissioner admitted that the Nigerian Local Content Act has a number functional provisions for the sector and thus have potentials for developing the insurance sector in the country but still reiterated that the extent to which the Act can be implemented so as to fully enjoy those provisions should be the concern of all operators in the sector.

The NCD, he elucidated, sought to transform the oil and gas industry into the economic engine for job creation and national growth by developing in-country capacity and indigenous capabilities, adding that it was designed to ensure that a greater proportion of the work was done in Nigeria, with active participation of all sectors of the economy including insurance whilst the  ultimate aim, he said, is to enhance the country’s position as the hub for service delivery within the West African sub-region and beyond.

The Act is designed to give the force of law to the Nigerian Content Policy, the objective of which is to increase the quantum of composite value added to or created in the Nigerian economy, through a systematic development of capacity and capabilities with deliberate utilisation of which is to increase the quantum of human and material resources and services in the country’s oil and gas industry.