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Simbi Wabote, executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Bayelsa, Nigeria, and a discussant at the Realnews sixth anniversary lecture discusses how political transitions affect the oil and gas sector in Africa
By Simbi Wabote
The chairman of the occasion, INEC chairman and other members of the panel, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tunde Adelami, I’m representing Engr. Simbi Wabote, executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of Realnews. I’m here to put on the table the opinion of the executive secretary on Political Transitions and Africa’s Economic Development.
We heard the professors have spoken so for us in the oil and gas sector, we just have to add our voice. We heard from the INEC chairman on all the challenges and plans for the election in 2019. Of course, we heard from him that everyone here has a role to play in ensuring a successful transition and of course successful election in 2019.
The executive secretary actually sent me first to congratulate the convener of this event today for the sixth anniversary. As of yesterday, he had planned to be here himself but for very pressing official engagement he couldn’t make it. So he has mandated me to read out his speech to us here today and to also try to use my capability to address any question that might arise as a result of the speech.
I am delighted to be here to share my thought at this lecture on political transitions and Africa’s economic development. So what do we mean by political transition? The term political transition is defined as an act and process of changing and evolving from one form of government to another using the platform of political parties or other forms for democratic changes.
It is a process we go through in chosen quality leadership. I would like to emphasise that political transition is vital in so many countries around the world to ensure human rights, the rule of law and provision of opportunities to test alternative ideas in governance. Many times political transition has been used as a tool of violence especially with convergence of ideas such that there is no cut clear supremacy among political contenders.
This tends to affect economic activities particularly for the industry where we play which is the Nigerian oil and gas industry. A look at Africa reveals that it has various resources that ordinarily should put it at an advantage but the reverse is the case. For instance, between 2005 and 2015 alone, we had Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and Senegal as new additions to the league of nations with hydrocarbon resources.
Africa is practically swimming in oil and gas while this discovery are exciting and present huge opportunities, the economic development of Africa has been very slow due to short term planning. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to share some of the factors responsible for this whole development.
- Lack of focus and resilience to deliver this developments, some of which may take up to a decade to complete.
- Use of political considerations to scope and locate infrastructure, projects such that economic benefits and project sustainability are not realised.
- Discontinuity in government policies, programmes, priorities and budget allocations due to change of the government in power or the actors piloting the state of affairs.
Severe economic recession that challenges the fundamentals of laudable infrastructure projects. Let me add that the sense of African brotherhood that has elapsed over time due to distrust caused by cross border security challenges, economic migration and other issues such as regional collaborations on infrastructural development.
In the oil and gas industry, apart from the changes in oil price, there are instances in which key projects have suffered from political transition. This could be as a result of changes in priorities of the new government or due to project promoters belonging to another camp or party. There is need to find ways of separating project portfolio from political transition.
For us on the board we have shown consistence in our transition since the inception of the board. Just a little tour around what we do for the benefit of those who might not be familiar with the activities in the oil and gas industry.
Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, was established for the implementation of Nigerian oil and gas industry development act 2010, which is an act of parliament enacted to empower Nigerians in the oil and gas industry to create more opportunities for Nigerians in the oil and gas industry to enable them participate actively in areas where before now foreigners actually take active roles.
For us in the board we have consistency and this has resulted in successes recorded in our projects such as our headquarters building project and then the Nigerian oil and gas tax scheme, which is actually coming up in the different oil and gas producing communities in the country. Then we have Nigeria Content Intervention Fund. This is a fund in which we have actually put under the charge of the Bank of Industry.
At the moment, we actually set aside $200 million that is being managed by the bank to help and support as an intervention in the industry to support Nigerians we probably want to invest in vital areas of the oil and gas industry. This is a good move that should be imbibed at all levels to ensure great initiatives and could be truncated under any political transition.
I want to appreciate the organiser for putting this event together to discuss such a topic and the audience for being attentive.
Thank you very much.
*Being an excerpt from the discussion on the topic ‘Political Transition and Africa’s Economic Development’ at the Sixth Anniversary lecture of Realnews held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, Thursday, November 15, 2018
– Nov. 16, 2018 @ 22:15 GMT |
Tags: How Political Transitions Affect Oil and Gas Sector in Africa
