The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr.Ibe Kachukwu, on Saturday in Yenagoa performed the ground breaking ceremony of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Park in Emeka 1 area of Ogbia local Government Area of Bayelsa State, saying the Buhari administration will be remembered for completion of projects and not for abandoned ones.
Dr. Ibe Kachukwu, while speaking during the event hosted by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board ( NCDMB) said: “As an appointed Minister under the President Muhammad Buhari, I personally do not visit projects unless you show me the draft of completion. I don’t want to be one of those ministers who when they leave have illusory of commenced but abandoned projects.”
According to him, “I like to be one of those who when they leave are remembered for few but completed projects and he did show me his draft towards completion and that’s why I’m here today, my promise to you is that we would complete this park in very record time, we would work within to provide anything that he needs to get it done and after the five that he’s first mentioned which are covering five Niger Delta states, we’ll extend this same very innovative intervention process to other parts of Nigeria where Oil has either been found or is being explored.
“I was here I think two years ago in 2016 which was my first visit to NCDMB and it was to meet with my colleagues who work in NCDMB and also to see the hope that they have for their new Head office at that time the head office was simply on the foundation level, i came back here yesterday again and visited this Head office and the concrete works and the mortar and bricks are largely completed.
“The expectation is that the head office which will be biggest office complex development in Bayelsa state will be completed hopefully between the end of this year and first quarter of next year, so again I’m happy to see that that is going very well and that finally all our colleagues who are in rented offices can come together under one beautiful structure owned by them.
“But it’s not the structure that’s important, it’s the message that is sent to the local and foreign investors that Bayelsa is ready for business, ready for Oil business and because that will now stand as basis to ask oil companies to relocate, to come and find presence, find establishment, so that is putting the horse after the cart quite frankly has been developed.”
” If you look at the vicinity in which we are, it must show how blessed the south-south, the Niger Delta is in a world today where vegetation is lacking, people actually take family holidays to go and see vegetation in Africa, everywhere is getting so developed so fast that you cannot see the hands of nature anymore but if you look at all the vegetation around here and the peace and serenity that God has given us, you find that our greatest blessing from this land is not the oil and gas it is the environment in which we stay, the peace that we enjoy and the clean air that we breathe all of which are free. I ask you that in developing this park, those same signage of nature mixing creatively and nondestructively with the elements of nature being respected so that the park becomes a model for other parks in this country,”
” i will expect that the park will bring for you the localisation of indigenous companies here things like fabricating, pipe drilling, procurement and in gas related technology oil will flourish and like the ES has said will generate over two to three thousand jobs in the nearest future for the citizens of Bayelsa, the south-south and Nigeria at large.”
The design model is very impressive, I’ve taken a good look at it and I’m also pushing for one to be brought to delta state after the ES has done Bayelsa, he bluntly refused to get my own working until he has his own in Bayelsa”
On the alleged claim that no visible achievements have been made under President Muhammad Buhari, Dr. Kachikwu dismissed the claim as false and declared that a lot has been achieved in the oil and gas sector.
” A lot of times i hear people wonder what has happened over the last three years, without getting into politics, this sector has to defer many times so low, we have come in and we have looked at our institutions the NNPC, the NCDMB, DPR and if you look back into these institutions they are not what they were when we came, we’ve revolutionalized the need for the sector to be open to the communities in which they work ”
“And to the Nigerian populace that own the assets, we’ve continued to do a lot of work in terms of how we bring development into these communities, we targeted the issue of thieves which was very challenging when i first joined and thankfully due to your own support and cooperation we found space to go back on oil production from a very all time low number of about 800 thousand barrels today to something in the excess of about two million and still striving to go upwards, because of the financing ingenious concepts that we put in place, financing in the oil industry has taken a very big and new leap and so over the next two three four years at most with projects like Egina, Zabazaba, Gbonga south and projects like Nigeria LNG2 with Nigeria LNG7, we have all”
“To see investments in excess of 60billion dollars we realize that before 2016 investments in this sector had f to zero and oil companies were basically operating reckless production but there’s a massive investment in the oil sector, with those investment will come jobs, with those jobs will come peace and with that peace will come development”
“So a lot is going on in the oil sector but a lot still has to happen, major policy changes are in the works, major regulatory changes are in the works, major emphasis on rural areas are in the works but i think no change can be as important as the change that i hopefully anticipate should rock this nation which is the change where the committee of south-south governors are able to sit down and see how to develop the south-south to the point where they take economic independence from the centre which means that cross border developments, roads, specialisation areas in health, finance, education and the rest can be done.”
” Frankly there is no bundle of states in this country that has the opportunity and resource base and the human resource to be able to develop and create a synergy of independence similar to what Lagos is doing for Lagos state more than these block of states and i challenge his excellency the governor of Bayelsa state to take the bull by the horn, the time for Nigeria for speech making is over.
