05 June 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – EXECUTIVE Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr. Ernest Nwapa, says real Nigerian content value in the nation’s oil and gas sector now hovers between 12 per cent and 18 per cent.
It is a massive improvement on figures for the last two years, which stood at between two to 5 percent.
Nwapa disclosed this at the Nigeria-UK Oil and Gas Supply Chain programme in Lagos recently, saying the proportion of contracts awarded to Nigerian companies in the sector had risen to between 70 and 85 per cent.
He noted that there had been a marked increase in contracts awarded to Nigerian companies, but said the industry still had a long way to go towards recording substantial chunk of real Nigerian content.
He said the real Nigerian content value was based on the proportion of the monetary value of contracts that was spent within the Nigerian economy, especially on Nigerian-made goods and services rendered with Nigerian-owned assets and equipment.
He identified a major weakness of the local supply chain in Nigeria as the absence of manufacturing activity and stated that for such a mature industry, a supply chain without local manufacturing is like a house without solid foundation.
Nwapa maintained that message captured in the Nigerian content Act was development of local capacity and that Nigerians must be determined to pursue this goal in their quest for partnerships.
