Yemisi Izuora
The Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has equipped its first oil and gas industrial park at Odukpani in Cross River State, with the state-of-the-art Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) facilities to boost adaptation.
Disclosing this on Thursday, the General Manager, Corporate Communication and Zonal Coordination Division at NCDMB, Engr Ginah O. Ginah, during a media tour of the park in Odukpani, Cross River State, noted that all needed facilities for investors to thrive in the park environment have been provided, especially for manufacturers.
He listed some of these to include state-of-the-art ICT facilities, clinic, manufacturing hall, security, roads, 24-hour power supply, banking hall, fire service station, water treatment plant, mini parks for accommodation, and free land for investors wishing to erect their own structures.
Ginah reiterated the determination of NCDMB founded some 10 years to open this aspect for business, declaring that the park is ready for habitation and has since opened calls for potential manufacturers to apply and qualify through a set criteria for a place in the oil and gas industrial park.
“We have already advertised for interested manufacturers and are presently going through applications to see those who are qualified,” he asserted.
The aforementioned facilities available at the Odukpani Industrial Park located at 25 hectares of land, Ginah said, are all the things that increase cost of production.
“So this park is going to crash the cost of production” Engr. Ginah said.
In addition, he revealed that the Federal Government recently pledged $50million, about N23,125,000,a000.00 billion, to attract companies to the parks.
Further, Engr Ginah revealed that several other such parks are under construction across the Niger Delta and specifically at Imo, Delta and Ondo States, respectively; as part of NCDMB’s efforts to significantly increase local content in the oil and gas industry and generally drive Nigeria’s industrialisation.
“We have taken Nigeria’s local content level from 5% to 55%. The industry spends about $20 billion a year, so you are talking of about $10 billion saved annually,” he said.
NCDMB’s goal, Ginah said, is to take the local content in the industry up to 70 per cent by 2027, and the best way to achieve that is to ensure local manufacturing of components, which is why the board is building these parks.