Bill on Nigerian Local Content passes 2nd reading in Senate

A bill for an act to enact the Nigerian Local Content act on Tuesday, passed second reading in the Senate.

This followed the presentation of the lead debate by the sponsor of the bill Sen. Teslim Folarin during plenary.

The bill is entitled “A Bill for an Act to Enact the Nigerian Local Content to Provide for the Development, Regulation and Enforcement of Nigerian Content in all sectors of Nigerian Economy except in the Oil and Gas Sector and other matters related therewith, 2020”.

Leading the debate, Folarin said that the proposed bill sought to consolidate on the gains made in implementing local content in the oil and gas industry pursuant to the enactment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2020.

“And to providing the legal framework for the implementation in other key sectors of the economy including power, ICT, construction and transport,’’ he said.

He said that the bill further provided the legal basis for the enforcement of Presidential Executive Order 003 and 005 on local content.

“The executive arm of government has recognised the importance of local content to its economic growth plan as clearly demonstrated by the signing of the executive order 003 and 005 of local content by the President in 2019.”

He further said that the objectives of the bill included addressing the low level of Nigerian Content in all contracting arrangements to be exhibited by all Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies in all sectors of the economy.

Supporting the bill, Deputy Senate Leader Sen. Ajayi Boroffice said that the bill would take care of transfer of technology.

Also, Sen. Yaroe Binos (Adamawa-PDP) said that there was the need to extent the enforcement of local content to all other industries.

“We have seen in this country where foreigners come in; establish industries and the tendency is for them to bring contents from their own countries.

“If we do not take steps to safeguard our industries, we are going to have problems.”

In his remarks, President of the Senate referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Local Content and to report back to the red chamber in four weeks.