The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Content, Senator Teslim Folarin (APC Oyo Central), declared Sunday that his new bill on local content if passed into law, would transform Nigeria into an industrialised nation.
Senator Folarin who stated this in an interview session with journalists in Abuja , said his bill was structured to introduce procedures that would achieve major gains in local content implementation in the oil and gas sector as well as other sectors of the economy.
He also said the proposed law recognises the fact that the government has been overstretched with too many agencies and therefore sought to rely on existing structures of government to implement local content.
He said the bill provides provision for the local content development committee to be headed by the Vice President, who will drive policy direction on local content.
According to him, “the bill gives ministers who are responsible for implementing government policies in their sectors, additional responsibility for ensuring local content is achieved in all their transactions.”
The Senator also said the public procurement policy would be relied upon to make local content compliance, a requirement for granting a Certificate of No Objection to procuring entities.
He said, “Each sector will be required to set local content targets in its procurement of goods, services and manpower and this will be well reflected in procurement planning, advertisement, bid evaluation and vendor selection.
“Approval for award of contracts by the Federal Executive Council will upon enactment of the Bill require a Nigerian Content Compliance Certificate.”.
