By Henry Umoru – Abuja

Chairman, Senate Committee on Local Content, Senator Teslim Folarin, has said that with the new bill on local content, approvals for the award of contracts by the Federal Executive Council will upon enactment of the Bill require a Nigerian Content Compliance Certificate.

According to Folarin, the sponsor of the new bill, if passed into law, it would help transform Nigeria into an industrialised nation, just as he said that the Public Procurement Policy would be relied upon to make local content compliance, a requirement for granting of Certificate of No Objection to procuring entities.

Speaking with Journalists in Abuja, Folarin who noted that his bill was designed to introduce procedures that would achieve major gains in local content implementation in the oil and gas sector as well as other sectors of the economy, said that the proposed law recognises the fact that government has been overstretched with too many agencies and therefore sought to rely on existing structures of government to implement local content.

READ ALSO: Local Content Bill vital to preserving Nigeria’s socioeconomic independence — Hon Idagbo

According to him, the bill provides provision for local content development committee to be headed by the Vice President, who will drive policy direction on local content.

Folarin said, “the bill gives ministers who are responsible for implementing government policies in their sectors, additional responsibility for ensuring local content is achieved in all their transactions.

“Each sector will be required to set local content targets in its procurement of goods, services, and manpower and this will be well reflected in procurement planning, advertisement, bid evaluation, and vendor selection.

“Approvals for the award of contracts by the Federal Executive Council will upon enactment of the Bill require a Nigerian Content Compliance Certificate.”

vanguard