The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has urged the indigenous oil operators to comply with the Nigerian Content Act so as to make the industry robust for all stakeholders.
The Executive Secretary (ES), Engr. Simbi Wabote, gave this charge at a breakfast meeting with members of Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP), in Abuja, on Tuesday.
He lamented the increasing number of indigenous operators who seemed to be working at across purposes with the board’s Act by their non-compliance.
According to Wabote, the NCDMB Act enabled the board to protect indigenous producers, especially in the oil and gas sector.
He decried the current state of indigenous producers’ lack of compliance, describing it as an act of sabotage.
“We fought for you; but you now sabotage the oil economy” he said, and urged those harbouring a sense of entitlement to desist.
He also noted that the indigenous operators tried to save costs and care for profit more than national interest.
“They want to be exempted from the Law Content Act. We have made it clear that the law is for all,” he said.
Wabote equally said it was wrong for a local contractor to win a job and employ 90 per cent experts who were expatriates, thereby causing job losses 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 now after some of them,” he said.
The Executive Secretary further said Nigeria had moved from three per cent local content value in the oil industry to 54 per cent.
He warned that if indigenous operators did not arrest the growth path by capturing the regulatory system, Nigeria would hit the 70 per cent target.
Wabote, therefore, encouraged indigenous oil producers to comply with the Commission’s Act in their own interest and that of the nation.
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