DG, NAC, Aminu Jalal
Yemi Akinsuyi
The Director General of National Automotive Council (NAC), Aminu Jalal, has blamed the current setback faced by automotive industry in the country on imported vehicles, which he said was due to lack of adequate power supply and access to cheap capital.
Jalal, who said this Thursday during the oversight visit of the Senate Committee on Industry to the council, proposed a window for vehicle purchase credit scheme for individuals and lease finance for commercial and fleet operators with an initial take off fund of N2.5 billion.
He said: “There is adequate local market for automotive vehicles but the market is dominated by imports. The local automotive industry suffers disadvantage vis-à-vis imported vehicle due to lack of adequate power supply and access to cheap capital.
“The council therefore proposed a temporary measure to boost their patronage by opening a window for vehicle purchase credit scheme for individuals and lease finance for commercial and fleet operators with an initial take off fund of N2.5 billion. Consequently, Section 4.2 of the Managed Fund Agreement was amended to include the strategy for the development of automotive local content through establishment of vehicle purchase credit scheme.”
The NAC boss said the patronage of local automobile assembly plants will increase their volume thereby encouraging the establishment and re-opening of plants to provide them with local content.
He however regretted that currently, many automotive local content manufacturers have closed down due to the low demand from assembly plants.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Industry, Senator Nenadi Usman, while scoring the council high in the area of budget appropriation, said the way out of the current low productivity of automotive plants in the country is to merge NAC with Centre for Automotive Design and Development.
This, the Senator explained, would not only generate high productivity in terms of assembly of vehicles, there would be more funding for the full take off of the automotive industry.
“We are highly impressed with the management and the Director General of National Automotive Council. I know with more funds they would perform better. But the merger with the Centre for Automotive Design and Development, Kaduna must first take place to generate more funds at maximum productivity.
“This we are working out to achieve very soon so that locally assembled vehicles will take over from the importation of fairly-used vehicles. With God by our side, we will get there very soon,” Usman stated.