The immediate-past executive secretary of Nigerian Content Monitoring and Development Board (NCDMB), Mr Simbi Wabote, has dismissed as, “reckless and bundles of lies,” the claim made recently by the minister of Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, at the Petroleum Club, that the investments NCDMB made during his seven-year tenure were a waste.
In a statement responding to the claims by the minister, Wabote said it was unbecoming of a minister of the Federal Republic to make such wild claims. Lokpobiri had stated among other claims, that that NCDMB wasted over $500million of its fund in equity investments in private establishments and in loans that were now non-performing.
The former NCDMB boss said rather than represent his office well before Mr President, Lokpobiri had chosen to act like a militant. He disclosed that his problem with the minister started when he declined to increase the NCDMB budget by N30billion for the Office of the Minister.
“I served two ministers and none of them have ever made such a request to NCDMB; we only make provision for the office of the chairman of the council, which covers his travel expenses.
“I said to him that the maximum NCDMB budget has ever gotten to in the past is circa N80billion for all our activities, adding N30billion will be too much for his office and I was not going to do it.
“ I ask stakeholders to review the NCDMB budget from 2016 to 2023 and also look at what got approved in 2024,” Wabote challenged.
Wabote further said the minister got it wrong when he said that 90 percent of the Nigerian Content (NC) Intervention Fund managed by the Bank Of Industry was not performing.
He said, “He was fully briefed that it is because NCDMB is not a bank that made us partner with BOI as a foremost development bank in the country to manage the intervention fund for the oil and gas industry with each loan secured by bank guarantee.
“As of Dec. 2023, it is on record that the NC intervention funds managed by BOI helped cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the industry and that the fund has yielded millions from the low-interest rates with the principal fully secured with BG.
“The fund was intact when I left office as can be verified from BOI. If the fund is now being declared as ‘wasted’, by the HMSPR-Oil, he should be asked what he has done, or intends to do with the fund to make such declaration. Industry watchers must not allow the secured funds to be diverted under any pretext.”
Wabote said the NCDMB’s briefing notes to the HMSPR-Oil on Brass Fertiliser clearly informed him that the partnership arrangement with NNPC and DSV Engineering was for the establishment of 10,000TPD Methanol plant. “It is therefore FALSE that the partnership was for ‘fertiliser factory’.”
“For the records, the initial investments by NNPC and NCDMB are pre-FID equity injection for the estimated $3.2billion project. The Board’s additional investment is tied to achievement of financial close which has not been achieved by the project promoters,” Wabote further stated.
He advised the Petroleum minister to separate his office from politics and allow the Board of NCDMB to commission some of the oil and gas projects that it has worked with partners to complete.
Some of the projects, he said are: Nedo Gas Processing Plant, complete with 300MMscf gas gathering hub in, Kwale, Delta State; Better Gas 500MT LPG Storage and distribution infrastructure at Dikko near Abuja; 48,000Liter per day Bunnor Base Oil Production at Omagwa, Port Harcourt, Butane LPG Plant Kaduna (2nd plant after the Katsina Plant commissioned in December 2021, and Duport Modular Refinery, Egbokor .
