Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Wabote, disclosed this in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, during a capacity building workshop for the media with the theme, “NCDMB and the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund.”
Represented by the Director of finance and personnel management in the board, Mr Isaac Yalah, the executive secretary explained that 45 applications have been received for accessing the fund and that 11 applications have already been approved, noting that, $11 million has also been released for the qualified beneficiaries.
Wabote said, “The $200 NCI fund is a pivotal plank of NCDMB that is set up with the responsibility to implement and enforce provisions of Nigerian oil and gas industry content development act 2010, it is the practical expression of NCDMB’s efforts to institutionalize financial support for indigenous services companies operating in the oil and gas industry.”
He noted that proper operations and utilization of the fund will help reverse the unhealthy foreign dominance in the sector by empowering local businesses to create 300, 000 direct and indirect jobs.
He explained that the financial cover of the Nigerian content intervention fund is a comprehensive scheme, which deals with contract financing for Nigerian oil services providers, contract financing for oil and gas community contractors and loan refinancing for service companies that already have facilities with Nigerian banks.
According to him, the fund will empower the community contractors who before now, were constrained by staggering amounts required to compete favourably to win and execute profitable contracts offered by oil companies and also empower them as an agent of wealth creation.
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He disclosed that the beneficiaries will have a repayment period of over five years at eight per cent interest rates, giving the local companies the privilege to access loans with ease.
The explained that the fund will serve as a social as well as an economic development tool that will create sustained impact in boosting local manufacturing, and create jobs to enhance local technical capacity, as well as igniting economic growth in the local communities of the Nigerian Delta and Nigeria at large.
Also speaking, Dr Obinna Ofili, the General Manager of NCIF said, is based on the remittance of 1% of all contracts funds, projects, and activities in the upstream oil and gas sector of the country.
“Nigerian Content Intervention Fund is a basket of funds created outside NCDMB, you will recall that 1% of all contracts awarded in oil and gas sector is deducted by NCIF which is being managed by the board to see how intervention fund can be used to support local companies to enhance their growth and development. ”
“The management fund initiative with Bank of Industry, BOI is the first phase of collaboration with development and commercial banks in this regard.”
Delivering a lecture titled ‘strategies and techniques for effective media coverage of the energy sector in Nigeria: the NCIF dimension’, Prof. Walter Ihejirika, a Professor of Development Communications at the University of Port Harcourt, urged journalists should be agents of change rather than messengers.
“Journalists should be creative and break new grounds by creating new words and ideas. Journalists should learn to go beyond storytelling and be purveyor s of good news.” He said
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