The House of Representatives on Wednesday accused global oil giant, ExxonMobil, of breaching local content laws in Nigeria.
The House is specifically investigating the IOC for allegedly splitting contracts for procurement and favouring foreign contractors.
A member of the House, Henry Nwawuba, made the allegation in a motion titled ‘Urgent Need to Investigate the Corporate Attitude of ExxonMobil against Indigenous Service Providers.’
Following the unanimous adoption of the motion, the House urged ExxonMobil to ‘immediately stop further procurement activities on their catering contracts and reinstate the contractors who were disengaged without reasons from 2019 till date.
The House also mandated the Committee on Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring to “investigate the matter by inviting the ExxonMobil Management, NAPIMS (National Petroleum Investment Management Services) and NCDMB (Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board) to appear before it and report back within four weeks for further legislative action’.
Moving the motion, Nwawuba noted that ExxonMobil and its affiliates were involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas as well as operate joint venture concessions and deep-water production with significant investment in Nigeria, stressing that the company has been a committed partner with the Federal Government in its drive for socio-economic growth of the nation.
Nwawuba also noted that ExxonMobil had equally been collaborating with various tiers of government by providing employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labour in line with the Nigerian Content Development Act.
However, he added, recently, the company was ‘reported to have commenced a contract process which is split to favour foreign companies to the exclusion of indigenous service providers’.
The lawmaker said, “The House is aware of reports of unfair treatment of Nigerians who render various services to the company, especially the termination of the catering contract of Royalty Hotels and Eden Hotels – catering companies owned by Nigerians – in August 2019 without clear reasons and re-awarding same to West African Caterers – a foreign company – and employing two expatriates to supervise catering services against the NCD Act.
“The House is also aware that there is unequal/prejudiced and biased procurement requirements/conditions/processes for catering service provisions targeted at automatically disqualifying proficient Nigerian companies from participating in the new catering technical and commercial bid.”
According to the lawmaker, if an urgent action was not taken to call ExxonMobil to order, the situation may ‘degenerate to both legal and civil actions capable of undermining the relative peace currently subsisting between the parties’.
