The House of Representatives Tuesday mandated its committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) to invite government agencies on violation of local content act.
The act has stipulated that local firms be first considered in award of contracts.
Agencies to meet with the committee are Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Nigerian Content Monitoring Board (NCMB) and the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the Department of Petroleum Reosurces (DPR).
The resolution followed a motion sponsored by Lovette Idisi (PDP, Delta) noting that Nigerian Oil and Gas Content Development Act was enacted in 2010 for the purpose of ensuring that all operators involved in any project in the oil and gas industry consider Nigerian content as an important element of their overall project development and execution.
“The perennial breach of section 3 of the Act that provides for the exclusive consideration of Nigerian independent operators who demonstrate ownership of equipment, employment of Nigerian personnel and capacity to execute such jobs, to be given the right of first refusal in the award of oil blocks, oil field licenses, oil lifting and in all projects for which contract is to be awarded in the Nigerian oil and gas industry”.
Debating the matter, Osai Nicolas said: “When you look at the exploration area, you will discover that Japanese companies take more that 80percent of the contracts. This automatically makes mince of our local content law and renders it useless as it takes away jobs that should have ordinarily be meant for Nigerians. So i urge the House to mandate the committee to vigorously wade into the scenario with a view to correcting it”.
Tajudeen Yusuf (PDP, Kogi) observed that: “laws are made for humans to obey, and not animals. We have this law, and those working to earn their living within our shores must be made to obey our laws”.
“The people violating this law are the ones contributing to the impoverishment of our people by taking away jobs meant for Nigerians. Such things can never happen in other climes where these foreigner come from”, he said.
The motion was passed and referred to the House committee on Petroleum (Downstream) for further legislative actions.
Meanwhile, the House also resolved to investigate activities of the Nigerian Oil Industry Regulatory Authorities and the need to complete all ongoing and outstanding unitization processes of straddled oil and gas fields.
The resolution followed a motion sponsored by Sergius Ogun (PDP, Edo), noting that companies, local and international that are involved in these assets or that hold legal title to these blocks have on many occasions been locked up in unnecessary and unending legal tussles as means of settling the issues involved.
The motion which was not debated due to its infrastructural nature was passed and referred to the House Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) for further legislative actions and report back to the House within 6 weeks.
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