Financial Energy Review
……by Ben Ndubuwa………..
As part of efforts to deepen its focus on Research and Development (R & D), the Nigeria Content Development Monitoring Board ( NCDMB) is to commence R&D Roundtable with some major stakeholders next year.
Apart from the annual R&D annual fair, NCDB plans to collaborate with PETAN, Tony Elumelu Foundation and the media in other to push R&D to another level as well as attracts offshore funding.
The planned R&D Roundtable will further enhance the industry supply chain using cluster approach of collaborating with PETAN. This also will facilitate access to the $50 Million R&D fund.
NCDMB had already planned that this initiative is to commercialize research findings and promote home-grown technology development. R&D is expected to be a very important pillar for sustainable local content championed by NCDMB.
In the just concluded media workshop organized by NCDMB in which one of the presentation was titled “R&D as Pathway for Deepening Nigerian Content Implementation,” the resource person and director, Research, Planning and Statistics, Mr. Patrick Dazibah Obah, explained that the mandate of the Board, is to promote domiciliation of work and services, which includes taking steps to domicile R&D activities in the country, something that before now, was not happening.
Obah said the Board has adopted certain initiatives to encourage R&D activities in Nigeria. According to him, first, NCDMB has to establish a Research Council and R&D Council. Secondly, he stated, NCDMB created a $50Million Fund to support relevant oil and gas research, as well as researches with commercial viability.
In another presentation at the media workshop titled “Sustaining Nigerian Content amidst shifting energy landscape: The role of the media,” the Manager, Capacity Building, Monitoring Directorate, NCDMB, Barr Dan-Esueme Kikile, who represented the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation, NCDMB, Mr. Akintunde Adelana, identified non-remittance of the one per cent as one of the major challenges of the Board.
In his presentation entitled “11 years of monitoring and evaluating Nigerian Content implementation: Lessons learnt so far,”Kikile said: “We also see non-deduction and remittance of our one per cent. We have companies that refuse to comply with the provision of the NOGICD Act. They cannot comply with the provision of the Act on their own volition except they are forced to.
“A forensic audit that covered the first 10 years of the Board revealed that many companies are guilty of violation of the provision in the Act.
“The Board discovered 275 non-compliances over the past three years, which it has dealt with and some the companies have proceeded to the point of registration on the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Joint Qualification System (NOGIC JQS).”
