Association of water Well Drilling Rig Owners and Practitioners (AWDROP), have cried to the Federal Government to come to their aid through higher patronage over their foreign competitors.Speaking with journalists shortly after the opening ceremony of2017Convention of AWDROP in Kaduna, its National President, Mr. Michael OladareAle said foreign drillers, particularly, from India are enjoying government patronage at the detriment of the local rig owners because the foreigners have more sophisticated equipments.AWDROP Boss noted that a sophisticated drilling rig cost N75 million, whilethe locally fabricated one costN10 million, regretting that locally made rigs cannot compete favourably with foreign made.This was even as the Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu in his address on the occasion, assured AWDROP members of sustainable cooperation to remove disparity in prices of bore-hole drilling equipments.The Minister was represented by the Executive Director, National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna, Dr Emmanuel Adanu.The theme ofthis years convention was entitled,Financial Constraint, bane of bore-hole drilling industry collapse.Mr. Ale explained, The Indians have taken over our drilling business in the past four years, most of us were active in this industry, we are not really active any longer because businesses from government go to them, we have the expertise, but there are no sophisticated equipments for us to work with, and there is no money for us to even purchase the equipments.The Indians are now competing with us and running us out of business with their bigger equipments. And that is why we are calling on the government to stand behind us so that we will not be losing local jobs that we having been losing all this while. So that is the reason why we came together at this convention to speak with one voice for government to help us.The foreigners just came into the country to do drilling business because there is no regulation, and because their equipments are more sophisticated than our own, the public now patronise them more us, the local practitioners.It is not that these foreigners can do the job more than us, but it is because government allow them into the country. They are not supposed to operate on our land without license and permit.This cannot be allowed in India. I cannot go to India and start drilling. It is not possible.The government has the regulation at the national level, but it has not yet been passed into law. The only State that has passed into is Kaduna State, and it is coming into operation soon. We are happy with the Kaduna State.But we want the national body to pass into law so that it becomes a bigger law so that other States can copy from there.We organise convention every year among bore-hole practitioners and professionals to come together and deliberate on a major issue that is affecting our industry.To get a drilling rig, it will cost you nothing less than N75 million, but the locally fabricated ones cost nothing less than N10 million. And these locally made rigs cannot compete favourably with foreign made ones.We found out that our industry is on the brink of final collapse, and we want to salvage it, and that is why we are calling on all our members to come up with a position paper, and send to His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, and also copy the Minister of water resources on the status of bore-hole industry in Nigeria for them to assist us and remedy the situation.We are also calling on the National Assembly to intervene and save us from this collapse.
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