24 August 2011, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Nigerian government is set to extend monitoring of the $20 billion annual investments in the nation’s oil industry with its plan to set up the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Joint Qualification System ((NOGIC JQS).
An initiative of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), the NOGIC JQS is an industry database of national skills pool and details of contractors’ capacities and capabilities.
Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Ernest Nwapa, and his counterpart at the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Muttaqha Rabe Darma, met last week in Abuja with an agreement to set up a joint committee, which will work on specific areas critical to the mandate of the organisations and especially for the development of the Oil and Gas Industry.
Darma, however, expressed regret that PTDF had over the years developed the capacity of thousands of Nigerians, who could perform key roles in the industry, but these were not being utilised by companies operating in the oil sector.
In a statement in Abuja, Nwapa said that NOGIC JQS will also have other information required to promote capacity building and monitoring compliance of Nigerian Content in the operations of oil companies and contractors, adding that his board is collaborating with agencies of government like the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, the Department of Petroleum Resources and the National Insurance Commission.
He noted that working closely with other ministries, departments and agencies is the only way the aspiration of the Federal Government to use Nigerian Content Act to promote the development and utilisation of local capacity, create employment for Nigerians in the Oil and Gas Industry and drive the development of other sectors of the economy will be realised.
He recalled that the Nigerian Content Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which is the precursor of NCDMB had collaborated successfully with PTDF on a number of initiatives. These included the implementation of Engineering design program through which over 1600 Engineers in targeted design software were trained.
He added that products of PTDF’s Overseas Scholarship Scheme will have their details uploaded on the NOGIC JQS from which operators and service companies in the industry will be expected to draw their manpower needs
