Tullow Ghana has honoured about 30 of its local suppliers for their dedication to local content development.According to the firm, this is part of efforts to empower Ghanaian professionals who can contribute to the socio-economic development of the country.Speaking to JoyBusiness at the local content recognition dinner, the Executive Vice President of Tullow Plc, Kweku Awotwi said, “If we don’t develop local content in Ghana in a meaningful way, our cities will become like Obuasi and Tarkwa and we don’t want that to happen again after another 100 years so local content is very important because for the money to stay in the country. We need to build capacity; we need to train people to be the welders, the managers and we need people to form the companies to supply the products, the goods and services to supply the industry.”Marine vessel contractThe Tullow Ghana boss expressed commitments to do more by way of awarding contracts to local partners; indicating that plans to rope in local contractors in its marine vessel operations in the next five to ten years is currently under consideration.He said his outfit is working on making local content represent the majority, if not the entire oil and gas sector cake. “it’s about time when there is a full in-country capability for Ghanaian professionals and indigenous companies who can deliver in all sectors requiring technical expertise; not just in the oil and gas sector,” he said.Local contracts awardedTullow Ghana has awarded contracts to the tune of $240 million to indigenous companies. This represents about 31 per cent of its total spending of $766 million, exceeding the base target of 25% by 6%.From an industry that had close to zero local content expenditure about a decade ago, the firm has from 2010 to 2018 awarded in excess of $10 billion worth of contracts to indigenous and joint venture companies with indigenous equity participation out of a total of $16.4 billion worth of contracts awarded.For instance, from January to September 2019, Tullow’s contract commitment to indigenous and joint ventures that include Ghanaian participation amounted to $669 million, constituting 83 per cent of total contract awards.