By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr Simbi Wabote, has charged staff of the agency to discharge their duties with diligence and professionalism so as to reinvigorate the tempo of Nigerian Content implementation for the benefit of Nigerians.
In his New Year message to staff, the Executive Secretary harped on the need for all personnel to adhere strictly with the Board’s core values, policies and processes and adopt positive work attitudes and culture, describing the attributes as necessities for achieving the Nigerian Content mandate.
He assured that the Board’s position and role in the oil and gas industry would be strengthened under his leadership, stressing that staff must become pragmatic in their tasks to avoid the Board getting blamed for slippages in the contracting cycle.
He promised a holistic review of the Board’s Human Resources processes in the first quarter of the year with a view to enhancing employee development and performance delivery.
On projects for 2017, Mr Wabote reconfirmed plans to carry out an urgent review of the Board’s performance from inception to date in order to identify areas of possible improvement, develop a 5-year road map for Nigerian Content development and implementation and incorporate the Federal Government’s “7 Big Wins’’ and other change initiatives.
He further disclosed that NCDMB will extend its operations to the midstream and downstream sectors of the industry and support 3rd party investors that intend to domicile value-adding activities in-country like the Egina FPSO Integration Yard project, GE Multi-modal Complex, Yulong Pipemill among others.
On the status of the Board’s legacy projects, the Executive Secretary pledged that the tempo of execution will be increased this year, adding that the Headquarters Building project will be completed on schedule in 2018 while the actual construction of the Oil and Gas Parks will be placed on a fast track.
He said, “the five parks to be constructed are expected to create about 2,000 direct and indirect jobs each and link community entrepreneurs to the oil and gas supply chain. This is an immense contribution to the economic development of the respective areas that must be expedited.
“Our strategy will be to engage stakeholders especially IOCs to support some aspects of the infrastructure development while also collaborating with leading energy companies like General Electric to provide power solutions in the parks.”
He also announced that changes will be introduced with regards to the Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF) to ensure compliance by contributors and enhanced access by qualified Nigeria Oil and Gas Service Providers.
According to him, “We shall entrench transparency in the collection of NCDF one per cent remittances by stakeholders as well as the support given to stakeholders in this regard. We shall also commence an on-lending scheme with the Bank of Industry and/or other Entrepreneurial Banks for financing manufacturing initiatives in the Industry at a fixed single-digit interest rate of eight percent per annum.”
Dwelling on the low crude oil price regime which had led to suspension of new projects and affected the tempo of Nigerian Content implementation, Mr Wabote admonished NCDMB staff to see the current price regime as a window of opportunity to do things better and differently, tasking them to galvanize the industry to maximize local content benefits from operations and maintenance services in already developed fields.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Dipo Olowookere