The Minister of Communications, Hon. Abdul-Raheem Adebayo
Shittu has disclosed that the Federal Government would soon re-validate its
directive on the patronage of locally produced Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) products and services by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDAs) reports ITRealms.
Declaring open a plenary at the Afritex ICT Export
Industrial Forum and Expo 2016, held on Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton,
Abuja, Shittu said there will be no excuse for MDAs not to patronize indigenous
ICT products and services because local content is vital in achieving the
overriding mandate of economic diversification and empowerment of the ICT
ecosystem in the country.
A press release signed by his Special Assistant (Media), Victor
Oluwadamilare, the Minister also noted, this will pave way for the promotion of
local content in the sector.
Local content, he said, is defined as the amount of
incremental value added or created in Nigeria through the utilisation of
Nigerian human and material resources for the provision of goods and services
in the ICT industry within acceptable quality and standards in order to
stimulate the development of indigenous capabilities.
The minister asserted that the patronage is aimed to achieve
the development of local skills, technology transfer, use of local manpower and
manufacturing and that it will have a triple effect to increase demand, thereby
creating jobs and contribute to the job and wealth creation component of the
government’s Change mantra.
Shittu disclosed that Nigeria is ceding about 70 per cent of the country’s technology
market to the foreign brands due to apathy for locally made products thereby
losing about $2.8billion yearly to the continued importation of ICT hardware
and services as capital flights from the
country.
This, he stated, spurred the government to put in place
policies and implementation that will bring recognition to indigenous
creativity and protect Intellectual Property emphasizing that the Local Content
Policy and guideline would be enforced to the letter.
“The Local Content
Development Policy would be implemented to protect indigenous players in the
industry and the ministry would
galvanise right policies that would see to the need of Small and Medium Scale
Enterprises (SMEs), let me emphasize here very strongly that government’s role is to provide an enabling
environment within a free market economy.
“The Federal Government has expressed its readiness to boost
local content in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector in order
to make it compete favourably in the global market”, adding that “the Ministry
had in March 2016 held a workshop in collaboration with NITDA on stakeholders’
compliance on the procurement of ICT products and services under the local
content guidelines by MDAs.
In addition to this,the minister said, Federal Government
moved to replicate the successful implementation of the Nigerian Content policy
in the oil and gas industry and other key sectors of the economy with the
setting up of the Office for Nigerian Content Development in ICT.
Berating the high consumption rate of imported ICT goods and
services into the country, Barr. Shittu said “under my watch, Nigeria will not
be a dumping ground for all forms of technologies”.
He commended the resolution of leading computer
manufacturing companies in Nigeria to come under an umbrella body called Certified
Computer Manufacturers of Nigeria (CCMON) with the aim of working with all relevant stakeholders to grow the
capacity of Nigeria computer manufacturers. This, he said, ”will generate
increased employment, strengthening the Naira and grow our local economy.”
Uboshe Uboshe/GEE
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