FG bars foreign firms from contracts below N5bn

The Federal Government, on Tuesday, said contracts worth N5 billion and below are to be exclusively preserved for indigenous firms in line with the planned local content laws.

The Minister of State Works and Housing, Abubakar D. Aliyu stated this during a public hearing organized by the National Assembly joint committees on Local Content.

He said: “As part of measures being put in place for strengthening local content laws in the country, contracts that are not more than N5bn are to be exclusively preserved for indigenous firms for bidding, award and execution.”

But when asked by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Teslim Folarin (APC, Oyo Central), on whether the new policy affects construction firms like Julius Berger, the Minister said proper categorisation will be done to determine that.

“Julius Berger PLC is more or less an indigenised foreign firm going by high involvement of Nigerians in its operations and management over the years which makes its categorization in this respect a bit difficult,” he said.

Senator Folarin said the three bills being considered are very important and sacrosanct to the development of the country’s oil and gas industry, which is one of the most viable sectors of the economy.

He explained that the Bills, among other things, seek to consolidate on the gains of the implementation of local content components in the oil and gas industry, pursuant to the enactment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, 2010.