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| (R-L) Barr. Esueme Dan Kikile, Mgr. Corp. Comm.Div; Dr. Engr. Ginah O. Ginah, GM Corp. Comm.& Zonal Coordination; Mr. Obinna Ofili, GM, Nig. Content Dev. Fund & Treasury; (NCDMB) and Barr. Kemela Okara |
Report by Ono
William
“Imagine if
100 million households were using gas in Nigeria” This was a searching
rhetorical question posed by Dr. Engr. Ginah O. Ginah, General Manager,
Corporate Communications and Zonal Coordination, NCDMB (Nigerian Content
Development and Monitoring Board) during his Welcome Remark at the Nigerian
Content Capacity Building Workshop for Media Stakeholders, with the theme,
Enhancing Media Competencies to Support Nigerian Content in a Gas Economy, held
October 19, 2022 at Shoregate hotel, Ikeja, Lagos State.
“We are not
using anything” he said, “even the gas you produce. In Nigeria it (gas usage)
is very low; we are even behind countries like Equatorial Guinea, so even with
our 200 million population we are not taking advantage of this because we have
refused to develop our people and infrastructure to take advantage of that
internal market.
“That
internal market is going to keep our capital flight very low, we generate
internal revenue and supply the excess outside the country. so we have all it
takes to be an economic power but we have been sleeping, unfortunately.
“As a
responsible agency, the NCDMB has taken very deliberate steps to actualize
Federal government’s declaration as regards interventions in gas and other oil
and gas value chain.
“We have
partnered with credible investors to develop critical projects in the sector to
take Nigeria towards this goal. We have partnered with 15 firms to set up
projects, covering modular refineries, gas processing, gas distribution, power
generation, manufacturing and others
“Before now,
NNPC use to import Gas cylinder from India and other places; even then it was
not enough to make any impact in the country in terms of usage. So we have
taken that initiative and we are pushing it very seriously in line with our
mandate”
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| (R-L) Mr. Obinna Ofili,GM, Nig. Content Dev. Fund & Treasury; and Mr. Obinna Ezeobi, Chief Supervisor, Corp. Comm. Div; NCDMB |
Then he went
further to task the media, as Stakeholders, to inform Nigerians about what they
(NCDMB) are doing and to hold them responsible.
“We have
listed several initiatives and partnerships in the gas sector with capable
entrepreneurs and investors. So as media practitioners we want you to hold us
responsible, we want you to be able to tell us, ‘today, this is where we are
with NCDMB initiatives and projects. What you need to define that, I have
already given you most of this information. Then we want you to be able to ask
questions, and show us a roadmap, what is your own expectation?
“All these
projects I have mentioned, like Brass fertilizer, the project has started but
production has not started.
“So we want
a situation where you, as the Press, would report the present situation of
these initiatives and partnership, and tell us by the time we come back for
this workshop that Nigerians expect Brass fertilizer to be running, Nigerians
expect the initiative at this level.
“We want
that kind of a follow up, hold us to our responsibility. Like the modular
refineries already running, several of them would come up 2023; so we want you
to give that information to the public. Where we are today and by this time
next year, where we are supposed to be. So that Nigerians would start seeing
that hope is coming their way on the part of NCDMB
“We also
want to see something about the success level of Federal government’s auto gas
policy, we want to see how far has the auto gas policy gone, we want Nigerians
to know what is holding us back in spite progress of the auto gas policy.
“Then the
other one is gas commercialization and monetization policy. We want to hear
more about these things and based on what is on ground.
“We also
have to raise the bar about discussion on investment. It would surprise you to
know that small countries like Ghana have more foreign investment than Nigeria.
Why is it so; because the local market in Nigeria is many times bigger than
that of Ghana? He concluded.
Speaking on
the “Successes of the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund (NCIF), the General
Manager, Nigerian Content Development Fund and Treasury, NCDMB, Obinna Ofili,
said that “the NCIF ($300m) is a special fund, created for a special purpose.
NCDMB is invested with authority to manage this fund and to deploy this fund
towards realizing the mandate that were defined in the NOGICD (Nigerian Oil and
Gas Industry Content Development) Act.
“This
started in April 2010; of course, there was a push back in the industry. We had
to use moral suasion, sensitization, explaining that local content is business.
You have also heard that from some managing directors of IOCs (International
Oil Companies). Local content is actually business. They started buying in, and
they started remitting.
“NCDMB management decided to build up the fund, because the
funds were just trickling in, nobody touched that fund – unusual of a public sector organization. The funds were intact, they continued to grow,
2010-2013, the funds were kept in limbo and they were being nurtured
“The first
success of the NCDMB is the knowledge that we now have.
“The Federal
government is a winner. This is very difficult for us to accept. But look at
the logic. NCDMB is a Federal government agency, created by act of the parliament,
the Executive Secretary of NCDMB is appointed by the Federal government; so if
NCDMB is doing well it means that the Federal government has made it
possible
“NCDMB
employs the highest level of passion, highest level of nationalism and
integrity in the performance of Its function, day by day
“This is
because the leadership of NCDMB has made it so. And that is because the
leadership is allowed to function.
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| A cross section of participants |
Stressing
further on the role of leadership as a critical success factor, he continued, “The
next we need to say is that leadership is fundamental in everything we do. If
we do not have the type of effective and focused leadership we have in NCDMB,
and I am speaking from inception, we wouldn’t have been talking about this
today
“At
inception it was like, create the fund, then hold the fund for some time, and warehouse
the fund.
“The present
leadership developed the 10 strategic roadmap, developed how to go, developed
the 7 working philosophy for NCDMB, developed the investment portfolio
template, developed the NCIF, developed everything about a self sustaining
process, which creates capacity and success”
He also gave
insight into NCDMB’s working partnership with the development banks; an insight
that indirectly speaks to the hard fact that with appropriate professionalism,
we should see very much less of bad loans in banks and bank failures in Nigeria.
“Things are
created and allowed to function. Let’s look at the NCI fund (Nigerian Content
Intervention) Fund. We sat with them (Bank Of Industry, BOI, the development
bank that manages the $300m NCI Fund on behalf of NCDMB) over several days and
nights, to develop the template and framework on how this will work. They are
very critical issues when you want to develop something that would succeed.
“When we finished,
we were able to come up with templates and products that work. Now we don’t
ever need to tell BOI, ‘this is how you will do it’. Like my Executive
Secretary would say, ‘we are not a bank and we are not in the business of
micromanaging’.
“So what we did was to do what other people do not do. ‘We
have given you this money, $300m, but that every risk-credit risk, which comes
out of this money that we are giving you, you will bear it. If you give any
loan that becomes bad, we don’t want to know; you give us back the money
because we are holding this money in trust’.
“So because of that nobody in NCDMB goes to BOI to say,
‘this person has applied to you, help him’. There is nobody in NCDMB that does
that. So BOI is at liberty to process the loans, only the ones that fall within
the credibility criteria. That’s why it is professional.
“Next we
developed the web system of application. If you are in Damaturu or Ogbia (Bayelsa
State) you don’t even need to enter the road and come to BOI to apply. You
enter the portal, you read the instructions, make your application, and submit
it. They don’t even need to see you. The first person that got this loan said
that he didn’t see anyone in BOI. He didn’t have any physical contact.
“We also
agreed with BOI a maximum processing time of 45 days; so long as the applicant
has brought all the documents that are needed. The maximum time to give you a
decision, the loan is approved or not approved, is 45 working days. At NEXIM we
even reduced it to 21 days. We are working with BOI for manufacturing bond, we
said, ‘no, we can’t do 45 days because you have developed some experience, (so)
we reduced it to 25 days. This is why this fund is so successful. This is how NCDMB works.”
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| Participants |
Lastly, he talked
about the issue of Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria
“The last
that I want to talk about is something very critical to NCDMB, to reduce the
cost of doing business in Nigeria. We made it clear that the maximum interest
or cost of capital for anybody that borrows from the fund, the $300m fund, is
8%. Once it is 8% you are not charging anything again-no monitoring fee, no
processing fee, whether you are borrowing in naira or dollars. Compare it with
25% elsewhere
“We have
joint project monitoring, where NCDMB officials that is responsible go together
to monitor how the project under this fund fare. Not even a single loan is bad.
This is the success story of this fund” he concluded.
During the
presentation on, Ethical & legal landmines in the age of digital journalism
in Nigeria’, handled by Barr. Kemela Okara, the immediate past Secretary to the
State Government , Bayelsa State, under Governor Seriake Dickson, journalists
were urged to be investigative and ensure they report the truth.
“We want to
do Breaking News but when you break the news, sometimes you are breaking people’s
head, you are breaking institutions, you are breaking activities. We need
journalism that is truthful, factual and accurate”