By EGUFE YAFUGBORHI

Against a self determined pass mark by the enforcing agency, at the 3rd Port Harcourt International Oil and Gas Conference, some stakeholders were less than impressed on the progress made in arresting capital flight from the industry with the instrument of the Act three years down the line.

Once every year, since 2010, the Government of Rivers State which prides itself as the capital of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, gathered stakeholders to stir debates aimed at sharing ideas to move the industry forward and to support positive developments.

With the theme, “The Nigerian Content Act and Deregulation: Issues and Prospects”, the just ended 3rd Annual Port Harcourt International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition (PHIOG), initiated by the Rivers State House of Assembly (RVHA) in collaboration with the Organised Private Sector (OPS), exposed lingering abuses and challenges while offering projections on the strength of the act.

Former Petroleum minister and OPEC President now retired into royalty as the Amayanabo of Nembe Kingdom, Bayelsa State, King (Dr.) Edmund Daukoru, who chaired the occasion set the tone for robust debate during the three day conference.

He noted that in some business quarters with reference to a particular air transport provider in the sector, job responsibilities that could be easily handled by Nigerians are still reserved for expatriates.

“At the hanger of this air service provider, that is where trucks are employed to pull aircrafts out and in to fly or to park after landing. It would surprise you to know that Nigerians are not engaged in this task. For God’s sake, what is so technical in dragging a craft in or out of its parking lot with a truck that Nigerians cannot handle,” Daukoru wondered. “This is just one of several cases. If you understand the point I am making, you could point to several abuses where the policy concerns intellectual content on the act,” he explained.

He also considered it absurd that production constituents for the industries including natural resources like Bentonite and Berite are in commercial quantity in Nigeria but they are imported to. “These are just shades of mud minerals which we have in Nigeria. Even the addictives you need to make them useful for the industry, substances like mica are all here with us, but we are not tapping them and we continue to import. This is not good for the local content implementation,” he added.

Regulator’s self appraisal
While not disputing the observations by King Daukoru, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr. Earmest Nwapa, declared that the agency was making progress in checking continued nonconformity by industry players.

In a paper presented on his behalf, Nwapa, however, decried the low public appreciation of the progress the agency had made, adding that to some extent, this is influenced by a bit of skewed perception of its responsibilities and the irregularities contained in the Act.

Nwapa noted that the law is not a ruling that every investment interest in the industry is taken over by Nigerians. “It is not about the Nigerianisation of the oil and gas industry. It is instead, about domesticating the industry mainly to ensure that the huge investment in the capital intensive nature of the industry is not repatriated to the home economies of the oil multinationals.

“We have discovered that in major investment projects in the sector, whether it has to do with ship, vessel or FPSO construction, rig or tank farm development, the contract components of the fabrication or equipment procurement take overwhelming 90% of the contract sum. Owing to a mix of lack of human capacity, fund and production or fabrication plants in procuring these components, the contracts are awarded to foreign interests and you just see a huge amount of Nigerian money shipped to develop other human beings and economies where the part are procured or fabricated,” he explained.

He continued, “With the Nigerian Content Act, even if Nigerians have no competence or the financial muscle to do the job, we can compel the awarding authority to ensure that the foreign corporation to do the job comes down to Nigeria to set up the production unit to produce or fabricate the tools, components or equipment. This way they cannot ignore the engagement of Nigerians in the project line because it would cost then more to import all the labour where Nigerians has competence. This ensures as much as possible that a significant portion of the 90% is dispensed within Nigeria.

“In the long run, local capacity is boosted among Nigerians participating in the domesticated foreign technology. And you know in areas where there are proven local competence gaps there is a provision allowing for Nigerians to understudy the expatriates to take absolute control where full competence has been achieved sometimes with timelines set out for disengagement of the expatriates.

“That has challenged us to start taking a census and biometrics on how many expatriates are in our means, what each of them is involved in to determine when are abuses. It has also become imperative to procure a data of all Nigerians with valued industry skills to have a ready pool of local hands to check the influx of foreign interests at the point of engagement,” he elaborated.