Local Content : key to Nigeria’s growth, says Dr Jadesimi

By Adebiyi sunday

The Managing Director of LADOL, Dr. Amy Jadesimi, has said that the way to move Nigeria and its economy forward is to embrace local content, currently being championed in the oil industry by the Nigeria Content Development Management Board (NCDMB).

According to her, local content will boost the nation’s economy if Nigerians are allowed and offer an opportunity to exhibit their talents stressing that local content will always be reliable and cheaper in the sustainability of any given organization during and after the pandemic.

In a statement by the company, Lagos, Jadesimi said Nigerians are reliable, competent, and efficient in-service delivery when compete favorably with their foreign counterparts, stressing that, at a cheaper cost, Nigerians were able to handle a more complex task during the pandemic.

“Local content is the best way to go. Look at what happened during the pandemic; the oil companies and their expatriates have to send their workers back to their countries, but Nigerians and Nigeria proved themselves because things that were not supposed to be handed over to them ordinarily were later handled exclusively by Nigerians.

Jadesimi said the offshore logistics firm was able to survive the dreaded coronavirus pandemic in 2020 due to local capacity, adding that the company also invested hugely in infrastructure, equipment, security, and personnel.

The LADOL boss reiterated that the company was keenly interested to invest in human capacity because a country like Nigeria in the future would be one of the focal points where people will invest due to the potential and opportunities that abound.

She said most businesses were currently focusing on how to survive due to the pandemic saying LADOL was not an exception.

She emphasised that the year 2020 was a very tough year for investors but noted that the company was poised to invest massively in human capacity.

“Our plans at the moment is to bring back as much staff as possible as the market picks up and that is very important to us because we invest a lot in people and our staff in terms of training. There is no staff that has left that we don’t want to bring back because like I always say to people, this market is big but at the same time small. I think that going forward this year, we are hoping that by Q4, we will start to see some of these upscale and that will trigger significant hiring like probably a hundred additional people based on the current projection.