The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, on Thursday called on financial institutions , oil companies and other stakeholders to support the expansion of Nigerian Content Intervention Fund.
Kachikwu made the call at the launching of a 200 million dollar Nigerian Content Intervention Fund in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the fund, provide by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), is designed to support development of capacity for Nigerian expertise in oil and gas sector.
The Fund, to be administered by Bank of Industry (BOI), will be disbursed on a single digit interest rate of not more than eight per cent within a period of five years to qualified local players in the industry.
Kachikwu said that the fund would help to galvanize some local Nigerian experts who wanted to invest in some areas but lacked sufficient funding. “As small as the fund might be, 200 million dollars is to ginger everybody to begin to look at how to expand this fund.
“My goal for this fund is at least one billion dollars and not 200 million dollars. “So once the fund is launched, we will work internally and first of all get BOI to also contribute its counterpart funding.
“I also expect the oil industry to begin to say how can we contribute; whether it is through deposit to BOI, to enable us to expand this pool of fund. “I like to see investment drives that will bring in Foreign Direct Investments into this fund,“ he said.
He said there were series of opportunities inherent in the utilisation of the fund, hence the need for expansion. The minster also said that it was important to ensure proper disbursement of the fund.
“We must be careful to see that we have reasonable geographical spread in what we are doing, so that we don’t have one geographical entity benefiting from it; so the fund must go round, that is key.
“Secondly, I like to see this fund go to cutting edge technology driven businesses; we need to look for things that are not there as basic normal day to day activities.“
He said there was the need to ensure sectoral spread of the fund in the downstream, upstream and mainstream sub sectors. He also emphasised the need to consider and incorporate the oil producing communities in the disbursement of the fund.
The minster urged oil companies to identify indigenous companies operating within their domain and support them to grow capacity. This, he said, would help to develop the industry further.
“The whole idea is for oil companies to identify within their own domain in the last five years, 10 companies that have worked with them and have capacity but lacked in certain things that can help them grow.
“The oil companies can help them grow by giving them adequate patronage, support, by getting training, some time providing certain technology that they can grow with. “This industry will not grow by Nigerian company just struggling alone to grow, we have a moral responsibility as oil industry to help the companies grow.“
He thanked NCDMB for its effort at promoting local content, adding that NCDMB should place a benchmark on when to exit the use of foreign capacity in some areas. “We must begin to drive local content development in the oil industry; once we succeed, the rest sectors of the economy will grow.
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