Nigeria’s Automotive Industry Development Policy (NAIDP) bill, which has been delayed by intrigues, is now on the table of President Muhammadu Buhari, awaiting his assent, authoritative sources within the corridors of power in Abuja, the nation’s political capital, have hinted.
This piece of good news is coming after a long delay caused by a series of political intrigues and interventions from certain powerful stakeholders who felt threatened that their stronghold on auto trading may be affected if the bill is eventually passed into law.
A very close anonymous industry stakeholder who spoke to BusinessDay regretted that it had been very difficult for the bill to be passed into law during the twilight of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration due to political reasons.
Investigations also revealed that the former president could not sign the bill to give it the much needed legal backing because there were reports that clearing and forwarding agents threatened they would not vote for him in 2015 if he appended his signature on the bill.
In a telephone chat with BusinessDay this week, Aliyu Jelani, director-general of National Automotive Design & Development Council (NADDC) said that, among other imperatives, the objective of the automotive policy is to restore assembly and develop local content, thus creating employment, acquiring technology and reducing pressure on the country’s foreign reserves.
It would also transform the auto industry and attract foreign direct investments (FDI) in the auto businesses and allied sectors as well as boost automakers’ perception as a huge market hub in the West African region.
Some of the provisions of the bill include developing a sustainable and competitive automotive industry in Nigeria, creating an environment to allow existing assembly plants to survive and attract other original equipment manufacturers, among others.
Meanwhile, Luqman Mamudu, former director of policy & planning, National Automotive Design & Development Council (NADDC), in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos last Thursday appealed to President Buhari to sign the bill into law as doing so would restore investor confidence among the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Recall that, the 8th Senate had in November 2017 passed the NAIDP bill, as part of efforts to transform the automotive industry, following the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by the lawmakers during plenary in Abuja.
In February this year, the lingering controversy behind the protracted delay in signing the bill into law triggered the federal government’s plans to embark on a holistic review of the National Auto Policy.
One major reason, according to the government, is to weed out abuse by assembly plants and ensure that the gains of the policy are actually felt by Nigerians.
The immediate past minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed said that policy is yet to achieve optimum result and restore the auto industry for indigenous vehicle production for local consumption and lamented that, neighbouring countries are giving vehicle importers incentives to berth Roll on Roll off (RORO) vessels in their ports.
With the prices of brand new vehicle hitting the roof-top, available figures show that Nigeria has a total of 11,547,236 million vehicles in the country, with over 80 percent representing second vehicles.
The 10-year national automotive policy introduced to last between 2013 and 2013 is an amended version of the previous one introduced in August 1993. Its major thrust is to encourage local manufacturing of automobiles by offering protection/incentives to potential and existing local investors, while at the same time discouraging importation by raising the bar against all those who will rather export to Nigeria.
In the past six years when the policy was pronounced by the Federal Government, some of the auto dealers in the country for whom the policy was targeted at encouraging them to set up local assembly plants have engaged themselves in various deals ranging from non-payment of correct import tax to connivance with agencies of government and under valuation, intrigues, discreet manoeuvres aimed at outsmarting each other that has long threatened not to allow the policy work.
MIKE OCHONMA
