By Olamilekan FAWAS
The Federal Government on Monday said it will commence forensic audit of oil companies’ contributions to the Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF) in which $200 million had been committed.
Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), custodian of the fund, Engineer Simbi Wabote, stated this at the 17th strategic Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) conference in Abuja. He threatened to handover saboteur oil companies to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Alleging grand sabotage against the Nigerian content development, Wabote in an opening speech at the Nigerian Content Seminar, a session of the NOG, maintained that some of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) are fond of giving “you alk excuses why the local content cannot be achieved. All forms of sabotage is being brought against us. We will, despite this, stand our ground to ensure that local content is achieved at all cost.”
The NCDMB’s helmsman declared: “The Forensic audit of the Nigeria Content Development Fund will commence. If we discover any sabotage, we will hand over any company liable to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).”
There are other key activities such as the launch of the USD200million Nigerian Content Intervention Fund in partnership with Bank of Industry, he said, adding that his commission is also organizing The judges’ workshop to enhance the role of the judiciary in the implementation of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Indigenous Content Development (NOGICD Act), and the various stakeholders’ engagements on Ministerial Regulations, NCDF Remittances, and commencement of Forensic Audit.
“We launched the upgraded NOGIC Joint Qualification Scheme (JQS) platform in line with our Strategy. Over 1,000 participants attended the hands-on training workshop meant to reduce and eliminate the paper-works associated with requests and interface with the Board.
“We now have 121,000 individual records on the platform compared to 71,000 last year. The number of service companies increased from 6,600 to 7,400 while the number of operating companies increased from 40 to 50,” he said.
On the partnership on mechanized Barites Mining Scheme, Wabote said that his commission is “in discussion with AMAPOB to address the challenges being faced in the scheme as well as synergize with the Ministry of Steel and Solid Minerals for effective implementation and sustainability.
“We are fully keyed into the Petroleum Industry Roadmap under our number nine Strategy. We are actively working on various aspects of the ‘7 Big Wins’ such as Capacity Building with hundreds of thousands of training manhours achieved since last year. We are working on the promotion of domestic utilization of LPG and the establishment of modular refineries. We just signed the Shareholders Agreement for 30% equity participation in a 5,000bpd modular refinery. More of such interventions are in the pipeline.”
He added that yearly seminars and conferences should also be used provide and receive feedback on actions taken or promises made to make the events worthwhile.
“Permit me to provide very brief highlights on the status as follows. Strategy No.1 that I talked about was on stakeholders’ collaboration to overcome key challenges on skills gap, weak sectoral linkages, policy inconsistency and others issues. On these areas, we have engaged PTDF and PTI to streamline our areas of intervention in Human Capacity building. We have engaged NNPC-NAPIMS on in-country capacity utilization. Other stakeholders engaged by the Board include NEPZA, NCAA, OPTS, IPPG, DPR, and others.
“Strategy No.2 was to fast-track the establishment of 5 oil and gas parks. We have commenced site developments works on 2 of the parks in Bayelsa and Cross River states. Architectural and detailed engineering design works are on-going for the parks in the Akwa-Ibom and Imo States. Land acquisition is in progress for the ones in Delta and Edo states. In line with the directive of the Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, we are looking at the establishment of similar parks in other geo-political zones of the country.
“For the third strategy on Nigerian Content Opportunities Fair (NOGOF), we held the maiden edition in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state and we have published the compendium of opportunities in the oil and gas industries as promised,” he said.
On Strategy No.4, Wabote promised to hold the Research and Development (R&D) Fair. This was done in September 2017 in Lagos with a very resounding success. Some of the actions from the Fair are being implemented as I speak.
“Strategy No5 was on provision of support for the completion of on-going third party investments. As you are aware, the SHI-MCI fabrication yard in LADOL has been completed with the successful berthing of the Egina FPSO and commencement of integration works.
“Other investments such as the GE’s multi-modal facility in Calabar, establishment of sand screening facility, and several others are receiving the support of the Board.
“Strategy No.6 was on streamlining the contracting cycle to 6 months. On this, we have signed Service Level Agreements with Nigeria LNG Limited, and OPTS. The third SLA is being jointly developed with Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) and will be signed off shortly.”
“Lastly on Strategy No.10 with respect to internal restructuring, we have developed our 10-year strategy and secured the approval of our Governing Council on its implementation.”
