The Managing Director of the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA), Mr. Umana Okon Umana, has thrown his weight behind the planned amendment of the OGFZA Act of 1996 by the National Assembly.
Umana believes the agency stands to reach higher grounds on account of the amendment that is now before the National Assembly.
In a paper he delivered at the public hearing on the bill in Abuja, he said that having masterminded the growth of the sector by 32 per cent in less than two years after taking charge of the management and regulatory control of the free zones, OGFZA needed to be strengthened to achieve more.
The free zones grew by only 2.11 per cent before OGFZA came on board, he said.
The positive impact of OGFZA’s management and regulatory control of the oil and gas free zones, he stressed, was manifest in all aspects of the nation’s economy from shipping traffic at the ports to inflow of foreign direct investments and revenue to government.
He cited the Customs Service, which he said generated N143.2 billion in revenue from the oil and gas free zones alone between January 2010 and December 2015, and the Nigeria Ports Authority which raked in $2.1 billion and N19.3 billion within the same period.
He added that oil and gas business from the free zones dominated the nation’s export trade in 2016, recording 89.53 per cent of export in the first quarter, 89.65 per cent in the second quarter and 85.34 per cent in the third quarter.
Besides, shipping traffic in and out of the oil and gas free zones in Onne and Warri in 2015 alone accounted for 23.66 per cent of gross tonnage of total ship tonnage for the entire country.
“These statistics underline the tremendous positive contribution to Nigeria’s trade balance, with attendant huge revenue for the Federal Government,” Umana said, pointing out that an agency of government with such a track record deserved every encouragement to perform better.
Addressing contrary argument by opponents of the bill that the amendment should not be allowed, and that OGFZA should even be scrapped or merged with the Nigerian Export Processing Authority (NEPZA), Umana told the hearing that it would be out of place to scrap OGFZA since Nigeria pioneered the concept of special free zones for oil and gas business in the first instance, and other countries have since copied the concept on the strength of its success story in Nigeria.
Umana also cited the Federal Government White Paper gazette of March 2014 on the Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals and Agencies, which rejected the merger of OGFZA and NEPZA, as well as the opinions of two Attorneys-General of the Federation on the Acts establishing OGFZA and NEPZA, both of which affirmed the legal status of OGFZA as an autonomous agency with the sole responsibility for licensing and regulating oil and gas free zones in the country.
The proposed amendment to remove all imperfections in the 1996 Act is sponsored by Senator Ibrahim Gobir, Chairman of Senate Services Committee, representing Sokoto East.
Gobir said at the public hearing that the 20-year-old law was long overdue for a review to bring it in line with current realities.