The Senate Committee on Local Content Thursday condemned the non-appearance of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NDMB), Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) SAIPEM and Daewoo over breach of Local Content Act in the handling of the Train -7 gas project.
The organisations are currently handling the project as operators and promoters, allegedly breaching the Local Content Act.
The Committee Chairman, Sen.Teslim Folarin, while addressing journalists said there were petitions against the running and the promoters of Train 7, Gas Project, a development that necessitated their invitation.
The Chairman said they intend to escalate the matter to an investigative hearing as a result of pressure from the petitioners, while he described as unfortunate, the four organisation’s recalcitrance to appear before the committee
He said the invitation would have been an opportunity for them to defend the petitions in the spirit of fair hearing.
“We invited the four of them today, but as you can see, none of them honoured our invitation,” he said.
Senator Abdullahi Sabi Abdullahi who is the Vice Chairman of the Committee, said the matter concerned the implementation of Nigeria’s local content policy, adding that the Train 7 gas project, centres on increasing the nation’s output on liquefied natural gas which cannot be overlooked.
He noted that it was an issue that was important to Nigerians given the increasing price of cooking gas across the country.
Senator Abdullahi said, given the huge deposit of gas, the National Assembly was interested in how the companies could make life meaningful to Nigerians in their participation in the train 7 project and in increasing the local capacity.
“The Senate had invited the companies to know what was happening on implementation of the project, but they had all surreptitiously failed to honour the Senate invitation.
Meanwhile, the Committee has rescheduled their appearances on December 2, failure of which, the matter would be escalated to a full-blown investigation.
