Expert urges East African Countries to Tap into Nigeria, Ghana’s Local Content Policies
By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
Executive Secretary of Ghana Oil & Gas Service Providers Association, Nuertey Adzeman, has urged East African Countries to tap into Nigeria and Ghana’s local content policies to develop the region’s national content in the oil and gas industry.
Nuertey made the call during the Sixth Edition of East Africa Oil & Gas Summit 2020, organized by Global Event Partners, which focused on the topic, “Developing Indigenous Subcontractors into Regional Service Providers and Fostering Collaboration Between Service Providers and Association across the East Africa region.”
While speaking about the importance of East Africa to develop a regional collaboration, Nuertey stressed that there is a need to establish an association that will drive the regional collaboration, but the members should be more of industry stakeholders and players, and they should work closely with the Government for the implementation of favourable policies that will benefit the players and also position the industry for growth opportunities.
He gave an example using Nigeria and Ghana as a case study where both countries have been collaborating in various ways. He mentioned Ghanaian and Nigerian service providers have already established a strong business partnership whereas both countries can assess each other within a short period of time due to the unique opportunities they have in common and the localization advantage of the partnership.
He continued, “I think Nigeria and Ghana are willing to work with East African countries to develop a sustainable national content policy. They will be more comfortable working with us than foreign companies because this is our territory.
“East Africa should tap into our local content policies. They should collaborate with Nigeria, Ghana, and Angola to learn on how we were able to develop a favourable local content policy. And this can be done through the association.
“If we do not collaborate, East Africa will continue to make the same mistakes that we have encountered in the past years. It is possible to establish a regional collaboration.”
