NCDMB organizes two day multi-agency sensitization workshop

By Inegbagha Majesty

The Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB) on Tuesday Organized two day multi-agency sensitization workshop for Regulatory and Law Enforcement Agencies in Nigeria. 

Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote

 The Executive Secretary NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote was accompanied by the Director, Legal Services NCDMB, Barr. Babangida Umar for the event which took place at Sheraton Hotels Abuja.

He delivered a keynote address and a paper presentation on the “Overview of the Board’s Achievements to date and the plans to further deepen the Practice of Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry”.

The theme of the workshop “understands the Objectives and Philosophy of the NOGICD Act”; The Role of Law Enforcement Agencies.

Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote in his address said “We do this type of workshop regularly in line with one of the enablers under our 10-year Roadmap titled Collaboration and Stakeholders Engagement.”

This workshop is meant to create a platform for Synergy and Collaboration with the Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies. We recognize that some of our stakeholder groups are not familiar with what we do and our roles in the oil and gas industry.

This 2-day program will be used to detail out the various aspects of our mandate, explore areas of collaboration, and get feedback on how you see us and areas of improvement.

We recently had a similar workshop with the Judiciary and we are really happy at the outcome of that workshop as we are able to espouse on the collaboration we need from the Judiciary as we implement the provisions contained in the law setting up the NCDMB.

I believe we will achieve similar outcome from this workshop considering the importance of security and law enforcement in the various aspects of our national life. I look forward to robust discussions during the various technical sessions and the Roundtable discussion.

I wish to emphasis that while we are happy at the trend we are seeing regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in our country, we still have new cases being reported daily. We must therefore demonstrate individual and collective commitment to comply with the prevailing protocols as we don’t need a second wave in our country.

Let us use our masks, maintain social distance, wash our hands, use sanitizers, and look out for one another in demonstration of Duty of Care,” he stated.

Different speakers who spoke at the day one of the workshop, includes  Mr  Solomon Arase, former Inspector General of Police delivered a paper on “Powers of the Nigerian Police to Prosecute Defaulters in view of the Limitations of Section 68 of the NOGICD Act - A case for other enabling statutes.”

Other speakers are Mrs. Ohakwe Onyeka Eucharia, Assistant Director, represented by Mrs. Yetunde Cole, Federal Ministry of Justice, Nigeria, delivered a paper on the “Role of the Federal Ministry of Justice in Achieving Local Content compliance in Accordance with the NOGICD Act, 2010”, Mr. Tunde Adelana, Director, Monitoring and Evaluation NCDMB delivered a paper on the “Challenges in Implementing and Enforcing Compliance with the Provisions of the NOGICD Act, 2010 - NCDMB’s Experience” and Professor Abdullahi Shehu, former Director General, GIABA who spoke on “Inter-Agency Cooperation/Stakeholder Management in Content Development, Compliance and Monitoring”.