NCDMB builds intervention fund to $500m
* Clarifies training fund requirements
Sopuruchi Onwuka
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has declared significant growth in the fund it maps out for capacity development for local players in the petroleum industry.
The agency also informed industry stakeholders that the prevailing obligation on training is purposed to regenerate indigenous technical crew for operations sustainability.
Executive Secretary, Engr Simbi Wabote, declared at the ongoing Practical Nigerian Content (PNC) Conference and Exhibition in Yenegoa that the fund now has amassed $500 million (about N400 billion).
The Oracle Today reports that the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund (NCIF) accumulates from contribution of one percent of the value value of contracts awarded in the upstream petroleum industry.
Engr Wabote informed petroleum industry delegates at the conference that some 68 percent of all contributions to the Nigerian Content Fund (NCF) is pooled into intervention funds stashed away to the Bank of Industry (BOI) and Afrexim Bank in disproportionate amounts.
The initial NCIF stood at $200 million but interests and sundry market returns on issued loans has boosted the fund to $500 million.
Engr Wabote who explained that the agency is not awash with revenues made it clear that prudent management of funds in collaboration with commercial and development banks has yielded the double benefit of providing cheap financing to industry projects while earning premium on existing funds.
He said loan performance on issued advances stood at 98 percent, indicating high turnover and high returns despite low interest rates.
Engr Wabote stated that despite the initial 8 percent interest rate on NCIF loans, the management of the NCDMB has since further reduced the interest rates for different categories of contractors in the face of the global funding apathy on fossil fuels and domestic foreign exchange squeeze.
He said that only 32 percent of the NCF is used to drive the entire operations of the NCDMB, stressing that the agency has sustained on creative management of limited revenues.
According to him, the NCDMB had to put some 68 percent of the NCF on the market to enable it sustain activities that also generate revenues for all industry stakeholders.
He listed the prime national aspirations of government on the industry and the mandates of NCDMB to enable their realization.
He argued that the regulatory agency would would be failing to facilitate realization of the prime national economic aspirations on the industry if all its mandates are not optimally delivered.
On the prevailing divestment of brownfield oilfields by international oil companies, Engr Wabote challenged indigenous operating companies to commit to intensive training of young professionals to replenish the domestic workforce they inherited from divesting multinationals.
He stated that it would be inimical to the industry if operators continued running with aging workforce.
