The federal government has restated its commitment to quick completion of Ajaokuta Steel Company to pave the way for local manufacturing of cars and spare parts for local consumption, the Director-General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Joseph Osanipin, has said.
Speaking, Osanipin noted: “Government cannot continue to allow importation of over 400,000 used cars yearly into the country. We are tired of being used as a dumping ground, we are already working with stakeholders to ensure all used vehicles above twenty years of manufacture are banned from importation,” he said.
He disclosed this in an address at a public sector engagement on the Implementation of the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP 2023- 2033) held in Abuja.
He assured that the completion of the plant would not only save the nation’s scarce foreign exchange but would allow for local manufacturing of spare parts for auto industries and create massive employment for the people. “We need to talk to our colleagues in customs to start putting age limits on used cars. We cannot allow Nigeria to be a dumping ground for used vehicles.
A situation where 2005 or 2007 used vehicles are brought into the country is unacceptable and we’ll collaborate with relevant authorities to this effect. We will have to specify the minimum standard for vehicles to come into Nigeria,” he said. He added that they have seen vehicles imported into Nigeria without airbags, adding that it is unacceptable.
Underscoring the significance of the stakeholder’s engagement in developing and implementing the Federal Government’s Automotive policy, he said the NAIDP was designed to address key sector challenges such as low production levels, insufficient local content and limited finance among others.
“We are going to start what we call deletion policy which is contained in the NAIDP being reviewed because that is the only way we can grow our local content and develop our parts. We are working to identify the components part we can produce in Nigeria. We are looking at the production of tyres, plastics, batteries and other things. By the time we identify these and identify component manufacturers that can do this according to our standards, the better for us,” he said.
Emphasising the importance of standards in production, he said if parts produced are of the standard, they would not only be to assemblers but to existing markets. He added that the production of these local components would enable the council and relevant agencies to delete the importation of all items produced locally in the country.
“If we can start this, gradually we will grow our local content, start employing Nigerians, more investment will come into the sector and we will achieve NAIDP’s mandate. We need to develop our local content to conserve foreign exchange and grow the Naira,” he concluded.
Guardian (NG)
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