Local Content and CSR
LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPION
Jemma Langley,
… head of the Secretariat for the Permanent Local Content Committee, is the live example of how education and technology applied in the energy sector promotes agility and adaptability of people, and can drive improvement across the society.
How did you come to this role?
The PLCC was set up in 2004 but was not active for some time. In 2016, it was reconstituted and I was invited to join by the new chairman, Anthony Paul, who has been my mentor throughout my career in oil and gas.
I started off as an administrative assistant at Amoco, but before I left, 20+ years later, I was assigned responsibility for closing competency gaps and delivering training to project and engineering staff. This global path opened up for me when I was invited to become a member of the first Sustainable Development Team at BP Trinidad and Tobago. This team was charged with sustainable development of people in the Trinidad and Tobago Business Unit. It meant crafting and delivering the company’s Sustainable Development/Local Content strategy, policy and initiatives, with a vision to build local human capability, enterprise development and the capital market in Trinidad and Tobago.
I was also a member of a Global Cost Management Team, redesigning Cost Engineering training and revamping procedures used across BP; and also on the team for utilising Organisation Learning within BP’s Global Project Organisation, Trinidad and Tobago unit. I led the project teams in identifying and incorporating learnings from other teams which had successfully executed similar projects.
Did you always aspire to a career in the oil and gas industry?
The long and winding road started in Claxton Bay, where I grew up, the eldest in a family of six children. Our father was a labourer and tailor. Our mother was a housewife who also taught people to cook. Our routine included school and church, and playing outside. Daddy pushed us to make the best of our education. I also spent time with my grandmother who taught me to cook.
As the eldest, I felt driven to make a path for those after me. In 1990, I decided to go to London to study, computers and information technology. My time – day and night – was spent between studies and working to live and to save money. I packed barrels to send home; always remembering the family.
It was hard for me to enjoy food in London; there was a lot of it, but I felt guilty because I knew how little there was in Claxton Bay.
Even though I had the opportunity to work outside of London, I chose to stay in Brixton which was a rough neighbourhood in those days, 1990 to 1995. By day, I went to school for computer studies. I worked as a kitchen assistant at night. It was wonderful to meet the chefs, Egyptians and Moroccans, who made me feel at home and cooked for me.
I got a lot of experience with different companies in England: Cellnet UK in Slough; at Iceland in Brixton as a cashier, where I was accepted because I understood how to deal with people. I registered with an agency to do catering jobs in the summer. Everything I earned was to send back home to my siblings in Claxton Bay.
When I returned to Trinidad in 1995, the first job was in the computer department of an educational company. I had an unpleasant racist experience and I left.
Then I had two job offers: one with a big company whose name was well-known, the other was with Amoco. My mother advised there was more promise in oil and gas.
How would you describe yourself?
I am a people person. I am able to create networks. I can see the big picture. I am able to think strategically because I learned to think outside the box; I learned to look at the forest and not just the trees.
At the personal level, family life is very important. We were a close family that grew closer after our mother – my best friend, my first mentor – died in early 2014. She and her mother – my grandmother – are the ones who taught me to cook. After my mother died, I had little intention of going back out to work in the corporate world. I have my own businesses, the Très Bon Culinary Cuisine and Très Bon Corporate Consultancy Services.
I am a member of the board of the Couva Children’s Home and Nursery since I was invited to sit in 2011.
I had decided to undertake the Henley MBA. I knew it is the most difficult distance learning MBA but I challenged myself to complete it; everyone told me it was hard and was also costly. But I put money aside to pay for the first year and paid in advance; then I was happily surprised to learn that the annual costs were reduced, and the first year instalment would cover two years.
What is the Permanent Local Content Committee (PLCC)?
It is a multi-sectoral committee with members who represent organisations in the energy and business sectors. It originated in 2004 with a framework and principles set out by then Prime Minister Honourable Patrick Manning, addressed mainly to energy sector companies and contractors to use the surpluses from the sector to drive education, technology and diversification of the economy.
It was not very active in the early years, and was revitalized in 2016, when I was hired to lead the Secretariat which is the operational arm of the Committee. Since the broad vision is to affect Local Content in the energy sector as well as across the wider society, it now includes representatives from manufacturing, education and the Ministries of Trade and Industry, and Finance, as well as from the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction industry (JCC). Important professional groups in the society are also represented, such as procurement, contractors and legal.
Our first job is to ensure that everyone understands the vision, objectives and the policies that underpin Local Content. Everything is based on the legislation captured in the Petroleum Act (first passed 1969), and the subsequent regulations and amendments. As the regulator of the energy sector, the Ministry of Energy must ensure that companies and contractors are observing the regulations of the Petroleum Act; this requires a lot of information from licensees.
The PLCC and specifically the Secretariat have accepted the responsibility to ensure this collaboration for a planning process that lets us know long-term plans, resources, requirements that can be met in-country or must be outsourced internationally, for all projects. This database is being built with support from other arms of the public sector, for instance, the Office of the Procurement Regulator.
Stakeholder engagement is very important: we host awareness sessions, surveys, and expose participants to the regulations; but also draw out their particular roles in Local Content. We have extended training throughout the divisions of Ministry of Energy as well as to operators, industry project teams, service companies – local and foreign – civil society organisations, training institutions and the wider society.
What is the Secretariat expected to do?
Cabinet has approved the structure of the Secretariat as the operational arm of the PLCC. In addition to providing support to the Committee, the Secretariat is expected to communicate the aims and objectives of Local Content. We are empowered to carry out research, collect information (surveys etc), and provide analyses, with a communications mandate. The work programme of the Secretariat follows the plan set out by the Committee and includes aspects of governance, surveys for baseline studies, strategy, analysis, procurement and business development. Cabinet has approved an org chart for about 17 persons, but so far I and a Local Contant intern , Akelo Moore are the only employees.
We work closely with the Office of the Procurement Regulator which will monitor contracts in the public sector. We have established a relationship with objectives of collaboration (information gathering and sharing on commonly accessible portals) and codification (a system that allows us to monitor and understand the costs of goods, services and equipment in industry.)
In this way, we can have an overview of all or any projects being delivered at any given time. We can understand demand and supply (for goods, services, skills, equipment) in the short and long terms. We should be able to build a matrix that will allow an overview of the industry and especially its human resource potential and needs at any time. Already, we can see what resources are in country or must be developed.
What is Local Content?
Broadly and generally, this is the indicator of how much of our wealth stays in TT. A policy like this allows to estimate the gaps in the sector; so that training and technology transfer initiatives may be put in place to equip local suppliers for the foreseeable future. We would like every project in TT to be performed by Trinbagonians.
This is a vision of people nearing 100% employment, educated and skilled, adaptable, intelligent and resilient, able to draw on resources (professional, services and equipment and technology) to produce what is necessary to drive a productive and prosperous economy.
It requires us to develop programmes, and the institutions, to build capacity as needed for competencies in TT. It is a process that must be timely and agile.
THE LOCAL CONTENT INITIATIVE
In October 2004 then PM, Patrick Manning launched the initiative with these words:
“Sustainability is the ability to meet today’s needs without diminishing the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. In the Trinidad and Tobago context, economic sustainability has been the major driver for the development of a local content and local participation policy for the energy sector. Sustainability has to be at the heart of policy-making for the petroleum sector – a non labour-intensive industry, dependent on finite resources.
“The energy sector has been the major contributor to the national economic well being. The surpluses derived from the sector have been targeted for the development of other sectors and the diversification of the country’s economic base. However, there are other ways that the sector can generate value and strengthen the economy. Education, training, experience and business opportunities developed at the operating level of the energy sector can feed into the development of the nation as a whole. This process would lead to the development of human capital, promotion of the local private sector and assist in the diversification of the economy away from petroleum.
“The Government has supported this effort by investing in education at all levels including the setting up of the University of Trinidad and Tobago. The emphasis in formulating the local content and local participation policy for the energy sector has been on knowing the strengths and limitations of the petroleum sector in building national capacity. This emphasis has been aligned to a clear strategy to develop capacity transferable to the non-petroleum sector, where more use can be made of private capital and thereby strengthen the country’s international competitiveness. A key question is how to capture value for the long-term at the front-end stage? Initial investments in projects are huge so it is important to consider the benefits of spending more on local content in the initial stages.”
The Objectives of the Permanent Local Content Committee (PLCC) Initiative
The PLCC was initially constituted in March 2004, in accordance with the Local Content and Local Participation Policy Framework that was approved by the Cabinet in October 2004. After a period of inactivity, it was re-instituted in March 2016.
The objectives of the Reconstituted PLCC are defined in its Terms of Reference (TOR):
- To review the policy document on local content and local participation in with specific recommendations on the desired levels of local content to be contained in energy sector projects.
- To devise strategies to increase local content and local participation in all energy sector projects.
- To liaise with all stakeholders to promote local content
- To prepare a list of activities involved in projects that ought to have a specific level of local content over the short, medium and long term.
- To review definitions and terms to determine a benchmark for local content, for example, local company.
- To liaise with the Work Permit Committee of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries to ascertain the national requirements for the recruitment, training and development of local staff and the transfer of knowledge and the transfer of technology to the services sector.
- To investigate projects in which imported technology could be unbundled and devise mechanisms to ensure local companies are contracted.
- To monitor the infrastructure needs (gas, water and electricity) to facilitate and improve the local content capability, for example fabrication yards, industrial estates.
- To establish an appropriate methodology for monitoring the achievement of local content targets.
- To compare the cost of goods and services offered and contracted by the international companies in relation to local businesses.
- To undertake all other activities that could assist the Committee in carrying out its mandate.
