Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Mr Mutiu Sunmonu has challenged indigenous contractors in the Niger Delta to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Nigerian Content Development Law and the various programmes initiated by the major oil and gas players to improve their capacity and consolidate on the gains already made in ensuring enhanced indigenous participation in the critical industry.

Sunmonu threw the challenge while declaring open the 2010 community content business clinic for small and medium scale entrepreneurs in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, last Friday.

Represented at the event by Shell’s Senior Procurement Manager, Onshore Projects, Arinze Oduah, the managing director said the business clinic was one of the strategies to partner with stakeholders to improve their businesses and contribute to the development of the region, adding that Shell believes local contractors and business owners would only participate in the oil and gas industry if they are given the necessary training and empowerment to enable them make a statement in the economic development of the country.

Sunmonu, who is also the country chair of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN), said the Nigerian Content Development Law has provided a window of opportunity for indigenous business players to compete more advantageously by making their impact felt in the highly technical and capital-intensive areas of the oil and gas industry.   

He noted that in the last couple of years, Shell has initiated various programmes to build the capacity and capability of indigenous contractors and other local community stakeholders, including women and youths, to enable them play a leading role in the broadening of the economic space in the Niger Delta, and tasked small and medium scale business operators in the area to take advantage of the programmes to partner the company as a veritable means of participating actively in the development of the nation.

Also speaking, Shell’s Manager, Community Content, Amah Ikuru, explained that the development initiative was aimed at delivering sustainable growth in the Niger Delta through communities’ ability to supply services and materials to the oil and gas industry, while at the same time assisting the growth of existing contractors in the region.

Amah said Shell was doing everything possible to develop new indigenous contractors and a pipeline of opportunities for them, just at it ensures that the contractors can participate in these opportunities through training and capacity building.

He noted that to bring this vision about, the company has trained some 4,000 local contractors in skills relevant to the oil and gas sector, adding that the business clinic was designed to lift small and medium scale business owners in different fields from their present level to a point where they have all the capacities and capabilities needed to bridge the socio-economic gap in the region.

The Shell manager stressed that the business clinic provides successful Niger Delta role models to motivate excellence community contractors, through a forum for the cross fertilisation of business ideas, saying that this was one way Shell could support the capacity development of Niger Delta businessmen and women.     

In his presentation as role model of the business clinic, Chairman, Stambic IBTC Bank Plc, Atedo Peterside, took the over 100 participating business owners from Rivers State, round a set of seven critical issues necessary to manage a successful business concern based on the two pillars of brilliant business idea and model.

Peterside tasked the business owners that to succeed depends on how they first plan to engage the market, make money, sell their products, and answer the question of whether they should provide services or manufacture products as a means of fitting into the business environment, adding that they have to organised and fashion out a new way of doing business that should be attractive and innovative.

The successful banker told the participants that would get support from stakeholders if they plan their businesses and execute their goals with creative ideas that brings cutting edge innovations into the business, and challenged them to overcome the problems of poor managerial skills and projects funding by exploring the various opportunities provided by both government, Central Bank of Nigeria, other financial institutions, and corporate bodies such as Shell to excel in their businesses.

In his remarks, Managing Director, Wider Perspectives Limited, Kalada Apiafi, said a recent MSE Sector Study had shown that over 80 per cent of MSEs in the Niger Delta lack the managerial capacity to grow their businesses, adding that this has contributed greatly to inhibiting the growth of that sector in the region.

Apiafi noted the recent Central Bank of Nigeria’s N500billion SME fund to stimulate participation in the economy, but stressed that beyond availability of and access to funds, the most critical weapon for success were business and financial education through capacity building.

He said the business clinic was one strategy to build the business and financial capacities of indigenous business owners to take their rightful place in the economic development process of the region, and urged the participants to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the clinic to broaden their business networks and financial resources for the benefit of the industry and region.     

Nelson Chukwudi