Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday asked
the National Automotive Design and Development
Council to design a comprehensive vehicle
purchase credit scheme that would enable
Nigerians to purchase home-made vehicles with
ease.
Osinbajo issued the directive when the National
Automotive Design and Development Council, led
by its Director-General, Malam Aminu Jalal
briefed him on the activities of the council.
According to Osinbajo, the council’s bill is taking
time but it should be made to work for those
who cannot afford new vehicles.
Osinbajo said he was concerned about the
strategy for raising funds as well as the pressure
which the importation of used vehicles exerted
on foreign exchange.
He commended the National Automotive Industry
Development Plan (NAIDP), aimed at reviving the
nation’s vehicle assembly operations as laudable
with the capacity to grow the automotive
industry.
He further said there might be need for a high
tariff on used vehicles although he expressed
concern about the effect it might have on
Nigerians and on transportation in general.
Osinbajo further expressed concern about the
spate of smuggling of used vehicles which had
impacted negatively on the economy and urged
the council to work in synergy with the Nigeria
Customs Service (NCS), to develop strategies to
curb the menace.
Earlier, Jalal said one of the fiscal provisions of
the National Automotive Development Policy is
that it will increase customs revenue without
increase in prices of assembled vehicles and
make investments attractive and convenient.
He said the objective of the policy is to “ensure
the revival, development and growth’’ of the
automotive industry using local content.
Jalal expressed optimism that the automotive
policy would curb smuggling.
He added that it had provision for imposing
protective tariff and levy as well as an electronic
online solution to capture the 17-digit vehicle
identification number (VIN) obtained by NCS
upon payment of duties.
He added that full implementation of the policy
would lead to massive employment generation,
technological development as well as its
intervention in the transport sector.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that
Jalal told State House Press Corps after the visit
that the nation’s automotive industry had
received very good response by investors in
vehicle assembly since its policy review in 2013.
According to Jalal, the objectives of the policy
are to bring back vehicle assembly plants in
Nigeria using Completely Knocked Down (CKD)
operations and then develop local content.
"The response has been such that we are
now concentrating our effort to develop
automotive local content.
"And we briefed him (VP) on some of the
elements of the policy that will make it
robust, including the fiscal issues,
standards, steels development and market
development’’, the D-G stated.
He said the automotive industry could encourage
the steel industry in the country to come on
stream adding that the automotive industry was
recognised as one of the agents that could
create many jobs and investments.
He said the council had signed an MOU with the
Indian automotive suppliers association and its
South African counterpart interested in investing
in Nigeria.
He said the measure was to break the jinx of
manufacturing engine blocks in the country as
some of the organisations would bring in their
technical partners via "follow sourcing’’ to supply
the components for made-in-Nigeria vehicles.