The Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Joseph Osanipin, has called for synergy between relevant ministries and agencies in addressing some of the challenges in the Nigerian automotive industry.
The Director General made the call during his official tour where he visited Origin Tech Group, Cedric Masters Auto, Jet Motors, Honda West Africa and DAG Bajaj in Lagos and Ogun State respectively.During the tour, he underscored the importance of synergy in achieving growth in the industry.
“We need to work with other agencies; we need to work with other Ministries and apply an inter-ministerial approach in creating a kind of desk for the stakeholders. When there are challenges, they will be able to report immediately instead of moving from one agency to the other.”
Osanipin highlighted the immense potential in the local auto industry and also stressed the importance of human capital development in revamping the industry, adding that it was interesting to note that a lot of the assemblers were already providing training programs and bringing in trainers to train the Nigerian youth in the art of building vehicles as well as converting motor spirit (MS)-powered to compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles.
“On CNG-powered vehicles, Nigerians are already embracing the new initiative and hopefully by the time more of it is on the road, a lot of investors would key into the conversation process” he added.He reaffirmed the council’s commitment to align with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ in promoting local production of vehicles and components.
“The core stakeholders are ready to embrace the initiative of migrating from SKD to CKD. And this has a lot of advantages, for example, it will generate more employment opportunities, contribute more to the economy and have a higher percentage of local components” he said.
“Overall, we now know that we have the capability, all we need is to do some things differently in developing the auto sector,” he concluded.
The CEOs of the factories visited acknowledged the efforts of the Director General and the support of the Federal Government in developing the automotive sector.