How Local Contents Policy Has Addressed Nigeria’s Unemployment Issues, By NCDMB Boss
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Since the enactment of the law to promote local contents in 2010, Nigeria has recorded significant achievements, including the creation of over 30,000 direct jobs and over 15 million training man-hours.
Also, there has been an award of over 90 per cent of contracts to Nigerian owned businesses, utilization of the expatriate management system to ensure 80 per cent of oil companies’ management positions are held by Nigerians, growth of successful indigenous operators who are now responsible for the production of more than 60% of Nigeria’s domestic gas requirements and over 15 per cent of crude oil production.
These were the words of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Contents Development and Management Board, NCDMB, Felix Omatsola Ogbe, while speaking at the 2024 Namibia Oil and Gas Conference in Windhoek, Namibia.
Ogbe said “as at the end of 2023, we have reached Nigerian content level of 54 per cent and we are committed to achieve the set target of 70 per cent by 2027.”
He pointed out that the adoption of local content policy for the oil and gas industry and other resources was one veritable means through which African countries can ensure that the utilization of our resources will translate to energy security, economic development, and industrialization of the continent, drawing on the Nigerian experience for illustration.
Ogbe who was represented by the General Manager, Corporate Communications and Zonal Coordination, Esueme Dan Kikile shared NCDMB’s experience as a regulator responsible for deepening and driving local content in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
He noted that “a successful local content policy must entail the deployment of six (6) key parameters, namely, regulatory framework, gap analysis, capacity building, funding and incentives, research and development, and access to market.
“A law, or decree depending on the political arrangement in a country, sets the framework and boundaries for all local content practitioners.” In Nigeria, the NOGICD Act of 2010 is the regulatory framework that drives local content policy.
“A structured capacity-building intervention is also necessary to foster the development of in-country capacities and capabilities, while gap analysis is to ensure that baseline and periodic gap evaluations are carried out to ascertain the human capacity and infrastructure deficits which will then form the basis for developing initiatives, projects, and programmes that will seek to close the identified gaps.”
He equally underscored the necessity for access to market as developed capacities and capabilities need patronage to be sustained. A market, within a country and across international boundaries, is imperative for the potential benefits of enhanced capabilities to be maximised.
