The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) wants stakeholders’ commitment to compliance even as it says local content implementation will bring back Nigerian jobs.

A statement by the Public Affairs Office of the Board in Abuja on Thursday quoted the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Mr Ernest Nwapa, as making the remarks during his visit to some oil companies.

It said that Nwapa’s visit to Chevron Nigeria Ltd. and ExxonMobil was part of his week-long sensitisation programme to major oil and gas industry stakeholders in Lagos.

Nwapa was quoted as saying that the implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGIC) Act was geared toward the establishment of facilities in Nigeria.

It said the implementation of the Act was also aimed at ensuring that the local facilities were patronised so as to bring Nigerian jobs back home.

According to him, the emphasis of the Federal Government with the implementation of the Act is not aimed at only retaining the bulk of the annual oil and gas industry expenditure in the country.

But its ultimate aim was to create employment for millions of Nigerians from the oil and gas industry operations.

Nwapa was quoted as noting that most countries in the world were currently working toward bringing back jobs for their nationals in the wake of the global economic crisis.

The executive secretary was also quoted as saying that this agenda of the Federal Government should be supported by all stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.

He conceded that keeping the cost of production reasonable and meeting work schedules were critical to national revenue.

Nwapa, however, stressed that given Nigeria’s population of 150 million, the oil and gas industry, which is the main stay of the economy, needed to pay special attention to job creation.

The executive secretary explained that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Joint Venture Partners could not employ more than 25,000 persons.

He said that several thousands of Nigerians would be employed if the companies put jobs in the yards of local service companies and encouraged their traditional service providers to build facilities in Nigeria to execute their contracts locally.

Nwapa expressed regret that the preference for importation of almost all the goods and services used in the industry was steadily eliminating opportunities to develop human capacity and infrastructure.

The executive secretary said the consequence of the practice was the impoverishment of our people and stultifying national economic growth.

Illustrating, he said: “Each major offshore production facility contract award to be fabricated in the traditional Asian fabrication yard translates into the export of more than one billion dollar capital from the Nigerian economy.

“Five thousand Nigerian jobs are lost in the two-year engineering and fabrication period and the opportunity to train several thousands other Nigerians within same time frame.

“Such decisions also result in lost opportunity to upgrade existing yards and build new ones, cripple opportunity to attract investments to the facilities and lost opportunities to grow partnerships between local and foreign companies.”

Nwapa stressed that such practice must stop, adding that compliance with the provisions of the Act called for a drastic change in the ways the industry were being run for decades to achieve government’s aspirations.

Nwapa also asked the international oil companies to provide the board with the concrete strategies they had adopted to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Act.

The executive secretary also asked the oil companies to strive to meet the targets set by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke for the industry.

He pointed out that the board was set to invoke the non compliance sanctions prescribed in the Act for defaulting companies.

Nwapa charged the companies to come up with individual strategies of putting work in the yards of Nigerian service companies.

He also asked them to come up with plans to utilise indigenously owned marine vessels and comply with the expatriate quota provisions of the Act.

Nwapa maintained that foreign and local investors would not be encouraged to establish facilities in Nigeria to bridge capacity gaps until the board was convinced that existing facilities were being patronised.

He pledged the board’s unwavering determination to enforce compliance with the Act.

Nwapa added that “we need to demonstrate to bidders and service providers that when you do not comply with the provisions of the Act, you lose out from tenders.”

He also canvassed for a change of the mindset by Nigerians holding executive positions in the oil companies to balance loyalty to employer with a responsibility to align with national objectives when advising and taking key decisions.

In his comments, the Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria, Mr Andrew Fawthrop, commended NCDMB for initiating the engagement, which he said, would build consensus on the implementation of the Act.

He said that Chevron was committed to complying with the Act, but pointed at difficulties arising from the absence of a transition period and insufficient capacity in certain areas.

Illustrating the dilemma in balancing government aspirations, he said: “If you are seeing resistance, it is because we have goals to meet on oil production and gas delivery among other things and failure attracts some penalties.”

In his comments, the Managing Director of ExxonMobil Nigeria, Mr Mark Ward, assured NCDMB that the company would be proactive in complying with the Act.

According to him, you are going to see a different approach from ExxonMobil.

“We will not wait until we get everything right because doing nothing frustrates implementation of the Act,” Ward said.