Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, on Wednesday called for the expansion of the boundaries of Nigeria’s local content law to give more business opportunities to residents of oil-producing communities.
Dickson, while speaking with journalists at the Nigeria Oil and Gas Strategic Conference in Abuja, said the impact of the law on those it was meant to empower should be assessed.
He said, “Local content is one framework that I wish the people from this region (Niger Delta) can benefit from with respect to its various legal business opportunities. So, we have to further expand the frontier of the local content law.
“Not only in theory, as it is, but we need to continuously examine how it is working and the extent to which that has impacted on the well-being of the people in the communities.”
The Local Content Act was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010. It seeks to stimulate massive job opportunities for Nigerians in the oil and gas industry and ensure proper local participation in the industry.
According to the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, the law is capable of creating one million jobs in the next five years, thereby helping to reduce poverty and unemployment in the country.
