Is Local Content the Solution to Unemployment?

Ebenezer Agyekum-Boateng, TV3, Ghana

Dar es Salaam, October 21, 2016: "Even without oil, we are doing well...with oil as a shot in the arm, we're going to fly."

Upon discovery of oil and gas by some African countries, expectation for accelerated economic development and dealing with the unemployment challenges of these countries have heightened.

When Ghana discovered oil and gas in commercial quantities, Ghana's former president John Agyekum Kufuor stated the discovery of the country's first major oil deposit could turn the West African country into an "African tiger".

"Even without oil, we are doing so well... With oil as a shot in the arm, we're going to fly," he told the BBC in June 2007.

Nigeria makes an average of $50m a day from oil? But where has all the money gone. August 10, 2010 the then military head of state General Yakubu Gowon, said Nigeria's problem was not money but how to spend it.

This heightened expectation from the leaders trickle down to the citizens.

An expert in local content law, Neema Lugangira cautions that discovery of oil and gas does not automatically deal with the unemployment challenges.

"the unemployment situation can be dealt with by participation of local businesses in the extractives value chain," she said in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Neema Lugangira, who initiated the Tanzania Local content law observed, opportunities for employment through participation.

"There are opportunities for local businesses through local content but there are no mechanism to make sure it is achievable" she said.