By Seyi Babalola
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has urged indigenous oil operators to comply with the Nigerian Content Act so as to make the industry robust for all stakeholders and enhance the capacity of the nation to earn more on its resources.
The NCDMB Executive Secretary, Engr. Simbi Wabote, gave this charge at breakfast meeting with members of Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) in Abuja, Tuesday.
He lamented the increasing number of the indigenous operators who seem to be working at cross purpose with the board’s Act by non-compliance.
According to Wabote, the NCDMB Act enables the board to protect indigenous producers especially in the oil and gas sector.
He decried the current state of non compliance by indigenous producers describing it as act of economic sabotage.
“We fought for you but you now sabotage the oil economy” he decried and urged those harbouring a sense of entitlement to stop it.
He also noted that the indigenous operators try to save costs and care for profit more than national interest.
“They want to be exempted from the law setting up the NCDMB. We have made it clear, and will continue to make it clear that the law is for all and would be applied irrespective of their social standing” he said.
Wabote equally said it is wrong for a local contractor to win a job and employ 90 per cent expatriate experts, thereby causing job loss to Nigerians.”
He also accused them of project execution without getting approval and non-registration of their foreign workers in the expatriate ledger.
“They find it difficult to pay the one per cent levy stipulated by the Act. That is why the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) is going after some of them, because we will continue to report as any as are refusing to comply with the law to the appropriate authority for them to be treated as economic saboteurs,” he said.
The ES further said Nigeria has moved from three per cent local content value in the oil industry to 54 per cent.
Wabote who is already on the second tenure as the NCDMB’s chief assured that if the template developed by the agency is not aborted, Nigeria will hit the 70 per cent target by 2027.
Wabote, therefore encouraged indigenous oil producers to comply with the board Act in their own interest and that of the nation.
