Managing Director of the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics base (LADOL), Amy Jadesimi, has called on the Federal Government to develop policies that would enable women come onboard to contribute their quota in the development of the nation’s maritime and the oil and gas sectors.
This, she disclosed at the just concluded annual conference of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in Lagos.
While delivering her paper titled ‘Exploring Opportunities for Female Entrepreneurs in the Oil and Gas Sector – Now is the Time’, Jadesimi opined that the role of women in nation building has become very critical such that government needs to encourage them to participate in critical ventures.
Noting that the contribution of women in the maritime, oil and gas sectors has been very significant despite their low level of participation, she pointed out that government could leverage their performance to evolve deliberate policies to encourage the advent of more women in the sector.
Listing the possible means of achieving that, she said government needs to focus more on women empowerment programmes for sustainable development.
Her words: “Government can also encourage companies that have diversities, and even going so far as to have tax rates, scholarships and sponsorships for women in certain critical areas of the economy that focused on nation building.
“Women education is very important at the same time; government can encourage that institution to enable women to be educated. You need to make sure that you do not fund organisations that discriminate against women.”
She further called on the government to similarly find ways of giving financial encouragement to some organisations and institutions, to educate women and promote them into leadership positions in a bid to check the apparent male dominance in the boardrooms.
The LADOL boss noted earlier in her address that the time was now for women to rise up to the challenge of breaking what she called, “the glass ceiling’ by rising up to take on positions of authority at all levels of corporate and governance.
Alluding to the emergence of another female Prime Minister in Britain, Theresa May, 26 years after the Margaret Thatcher, she said the world may soon witness another “shocker” given the popular optimism that Hillary Clinton may emerge as the first female president of the United States of America.
