The House of Representatives on Tuesday mandated its committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) to investigate the alleged violations of the Local Content Act on the award of oil and gas contracts to an indigenous company.
The agencies involved in the transaction include: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigerian Content Monitoring Board (NCMB), National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
The resolution followed the adoption of the motion sponsored by Lovette Idisi (PDP-Delta), who expressed disgust over the non-compliance with Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, enacted in 2010.
Idisi alleged that the regulatory agencies fail to award contracts for oil blocs, oil field licences and oil lifting within the Nigerian oil industry, to indigenous companies who have the competence to executive such jobs.
According to him, “the continuous breach of the Act has resulted into avoidable loss of substantial revenues for the nation and jobs for the youths because, since 2008 the country ought to be drilling an average of four wells per annum, which should have been yielding 3,000 barrels per day, but because of the non-compliance by the relevant authorities, this is not being achieved,” he noted.
According to him, the legislation was enacted for the purpose of ensuring that all operators involved in any project in the oil and gas industry consider Nigerian content as an important element of their overall project development and execution.
Idris however observed that “the perennial breach of section 3 of the Act which provides for the exclusive consideration of Nigerian independent operators who demonstrate ownership of equipment, employment of Nigerian personnel and capacity to execute such jobs, to be given the right of first refusal in the award of oil blocks, oil field licenses, oil lifting and in all projects for which contract is to be awarded in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.”
He further lamented that despite the provision of the Local Content Act, “rather than award the contracts to indigenous companies, the regulatory agencies have left the rigs to rot, for instance, out of the nine swamp rigs, only two are functional; out of 37 Land rigs only 15 are working and none of the six jack-up rigs is working.”
In his contribution, Osai Nicolas, chairman, House Committee on public petitions said: “When you look at the exploration area, you will discover that Japanese companies take more than 80 percent of the contracts.
“This automatically makes mince of our local content law and renders it useless, as it takes away jobs that should have ordinarily been meant for Nigerians. So I urge the House to mandate the committee to vigorously wade into the scenario with a view to correcting it,” he said.
Also speaking, Tajudeen Yusuf (PDP-Kogi) who called for strict implementation of the Local Content Act, stressed the need for the National Assembly to ensure compliance.
“Laws are made for humans to obey, and not animals. We have this law, and those working to earn their living within our shores must be made to obey our laws.”
KEHINDE AKINTOLA
