Monrovia – The National Investment Commission has kickoff a peer review of the local content policy for Liberia, encouraging private sector participation to benefit from concession agreements in Liberia.
The review comes, following a working session among stakeholders from government, the private sector, the concession holders and business community.
A communication from the National Investment Commission dated April 6, 2015 stated “the session provides local content recommendations for the natural resources sector as applicable to major concessions international or locally owned”.
According to the statement, the local content policy is expected to be in line with other government initiatives on promoting private sector development such as the Public Procurement Act and Small Business Empowerment Act.
Speaking during the daylong session, the head of project implementation at the National Investment Commission, Andrew Anderson encouraged the business community to step up its efforts in the drive to support this initiative.
Mr. Anderson explained that the policy is aimed at promoting and developing local private sector by utilizing opportunities generated by investment in natural resources sector by developing the capacity of Liberia based businesses.
He maintained that the institution has put in place programs that target domestic private sector. Anderson outlined several challenges of Liberian Businesses, naming the lack of communication between concession holders, the government and business community.
He further stressed the need for access to services in building domestic capacity, access to finance among other factors to be addressed.
The Local Content Policy according to Mr. Anderson, being a government of Liberia initiatives which started in 2012 is being both technically and financially supported by the UNDP.
