NNPC seeks review of local content act

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday called for a review of the Local Content Act to reflect current realities in the oil and gas industry.

It also advocated legislation addressing the funding constraints faced by local players.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, in a statement in Abuja, made the assertion at a virtual stakeholders’ consultative summit, organised by the Senate Committee on Local Content. 

He stressed the need for indigenous companies operating in the nation’s oil and gas sector to upscale their capacity for global competitiveness.

According to him, this was crucial to achieving the target of reducing the cost of oil production in Nigeria on a sustainable basis.

While speaking through the Group General Manager, Corporate Planning & Strategy, CP&S, Mrs Eyesan Oritsemeyiwa, he explained that the oil and gas business required high technical skills and competence to compete favourably at the global stage.

Kyari who stressed the importance of developing the Nigerian content said any legislation that fails to embrace issues of investment in the educational system was not likely to achieve much.

He said: “In terms of the interaction between industry and education, we think these new bills would present a good model that we should work with. People are the greatest assets of any nation.

“If you have the best brains in the industry today, as long as you are not getting a good replacement for them from the educational sector when they grow old and retire, then your industry will collapse.”

However, he commended the National Assembly’s initiative to review and amend the Local Content Act and urged the committee to ensure that it is carried out in a timely fashion in order for the law to deliver maximum value for the nation.

He urged them to extend the local content law beyond the oil and gas industry to other sectors of the nation’s economy.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE