Mkpoikana Udoma
01 February 2019, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt — Indigenous engineering services firm, Engineering Automation Technology Ltd has called on local content regulators, to ensure that oil multinationals give jobs to local firms with strong structures and adequate capacity.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Mr. Emmanuel Okon, lamented that multinational oil firms award of contracts to local firms with weak systems and structures, who cannot always sustain their workforce into the next project.
Okon speaking with newsmen being inducted as a Fellow, Institute of Oil and Gas Research and Hydrocarbon Studies in Port Harcourt, explained that the trend poses a serious threat to the quest to grow the technical capabilities and manpower base of indigenous firms in the oil and gas sector.
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He commended the Federal Government for enacting the local content law in the oil and gas sector, saying that the law had assisted in the establishment of vibrant indigenous oil servicing firms in the country.
According to him, “There has been a rise in recent years in cases of poor regulations leading to IOCs awarding contracts under the local content law to companies without adequate capacity.
“It’s the trend we now see in the industry and it is a total negation of the essence of the local content law; once they (weak firms) complete the job, they shut down, pack out and throw out the workers.
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“This is not the way to guarantee and deliver the next generation of a skilled workforce for the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
“Regulators should step in and halt this trend by ensuring that IOCs give jobs to local firms that have structures and systems and that can always sustain their workforce into the next project,” the stakeholder said.
