Arts and Life
Senator Natasha tasks NLNG on utilization of $43m human capital development
By Iyojo Ameh
Chairman, Senate Committee on Local Content, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan ( PDP Kogi Central), has urged the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) , to prudently allocate $43 million from the $4.
Senator Natasha who made the appeal to the NLNG management on Tuesday during an interactive session her committee had with them , and those of Saipem Contracting Limited, and Daewoo Engineering & Construction, on Tuesday.
The amount which according to her , represents 1% of the total project value, is designated for human capacity development and institutional strengthening.
Sen Akpoti-Uduaghan stressed the importance of transparency and effective utilisation of these funds to benefit Nigerians and enhance the country’s human capacity development and institutional strengthening.
“Learning institutions from public primary to tertiary institutions nationwide should benefit from the $25.8m which is 60% of the $43m worth of HCD projects owed Nigerians,” she added.
Senator Natasha also emphasised the infrastructure deficit in Nigeria’s primary and secondary schools by UBEC report which has it that about 40,000 classrooms are in deplorable conditions.
“It would do well if NLNG’s HCD schemes can support UBEC in their quest to provide befitting educational facilities,” she said .
She addressed discrepancies in reported figures for the NLNG Train-7 project, highlighting that if the project is valued at $6.5 billion, the human capacity framework would allocate $39 million for institutional strengthening, $13 million for advanced-level training, and $13 million for auxiliary training, totaling $65 million. If the project is worth $10 billion, the allocation would be $60 million for institutional strengthening and $20 million each for training, totaling $100 million worth of projects across the country.
She explained further that for projects in the oil and gas sector worth over $500 million, 1% of the project value is allocated to human capacity development and institutional strengthening.
” The effective utilisation of these funds will positively impact the country’s human capacity development and institutional strengthening and will help address the issue of out-of-school children and improve learning structures in public institutions”, she stressed.