Wabote: Discretionary Expatriate Quota Frustrating Local Content Act

Chineme Okafor in Abuja

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development Management Board (NCDMB), Mr. Simbi Wabote has identified the porous nature of Nigeria’s borders, and discretionary quota allocation to expatriate workers as two of the main challenges militating against the deepening of the Nigerian Content Law.

Wabote explained that while the Nigeria Customs has been unable to curtail the free flow of coated pipes and cables used in the country’s oil and gas industry into the country.
According to him, the country’s immigration service has added to the challenges of the Act by frequently granting discretionary allocation of expatriate quotas.

He spoke at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the NCDMB and Bank of Industry (BoI) for the $200 million Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF) recently in Abuja.

The executive secretary equally explained that the NCDMB would take up new initiatives to close up the 20 million Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders in the country, in addition to promoting the use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for cars and power generation in the country.
“We have challenges that we face as we aspire to deepen the practice of local content in our country, we are however not throwing up our hands in despair.

“The challenges include power, contract approval cycle; inter-agency collaboration and sundry. The importance of power cannot be over emphasised. It is the major cost adder to total cost of local products and services. To address this, we will provide 24/7 power in the oil and gas parks we are currently setting up in five states within the oil producing areas in the first instance. On contract approval cycle, the challenge is non-compliance by operators to provisions of the NOGIC Act, we don’t award contracts but the Acts and guidelines are very clear on when we come in, we have had to issue non-compliance letters to some operators before they came forward to address these gaps,” Wabote explained.

“We still have challenges on importation of coated pipes, electric cables and other products through our borders. These are clear violation of the NOGIC Act and Executive Order 003 on patronage of locally manufactured products. Issuance of expatriate quotas by the Nigerian Immigration Services without proper recourse to NCDMB is another area of concern. Our approach to these challenge include strengthening of our monitoring directorate including the use of third-party monitors; encouragement of whistle blowing on infringements,” Wabote added.

“We plan to close the 20 million gap in the LPG cylinder availability in the country by partnering in establishment of LPG cylinder manufacturing and other required infrastructures. Other initiatives include support for CNG utilisation as fuels for cars and power generators. About 80 million Nigerian homes and businesses own generators, and it is estimated that about N5 trillion is used to fuel generators yearly. A fuel switch of just 10 per cent from liquid to gas for power generation can give you an idea of the size of investment opportunities in CNG utilisation,” he said.