A freight forwarder and chieftain of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders(NAGAFF), Mr. Kenneth Okoro, has said that unavailability of the proper equipment and technologies for an assembly plant to work, will make it impossible to have made-in- Nigeria vehicles.
Okoro, who said this, last week in a chat with Shipping Position Daily, also charged the federal government to emulate what is happening in the South African automobile sector.
He reiterated that government policies do not support car assembling plants in Nigeria, even as he accused the government of being responsible for the state of things at Innosson assembly plant.
“On the issue of using made-in- Nigeria vehicles as official vehicles, the question is have they put machineries in place for the assembling plants to work well. In South Africa you don’t bring in used vehicles, they have assembling plants; so if you want to bring in any vehicles into South Africa, it must be a brand new vehicle. Nigeria government has to follow the South African government; they are supposed to put in place a working assembling plant like the one of Innosson”
“Innosson is no longer working because of his problem with the bank and people are suspecting that there is the hand of the government in it. How can the government encourage such assembling plant, we no longer have Peugeot assembling plant as we used to have, no more have Volkswagen, amongst others”
Okoro, however explained that the nation’s automobile industry lacks the capacity to manufacture vehicles in Nigeria.
“So how can we now be using Nigeria-assembled vehicles, not even made in Nigeria vehicles because we don’t have capacity of manufacturing vehicles in Nigeria, but we have assembly plants. And the plants are not working because of the harsh economic policy.
Before the government can advance to even use Nigeria-assembled vehicles, they have to put in place all the machineries or technologies that can make that possible”, he explained.
Okoro also charged the government to ensure that duties payable on imported vehicles are reduced as according to him, this will help to address the high rate of smuggling in the country.
“Reduction of duty on imported vehicles is a move in the right direction, we have been clamouring for it, and this double digit duty on imported vehicles has led to the government losing a lot of revenue. It has caused increase in smuggling from our neighboring countries”, he added.
He also advised that lower duty should be placed on imported new vehicles to discourage the importation of rickety ones as it is practiced in Ghana.
“So if the government or the policy makers meant well they are supposed to buy some ideas from Ghana. In Ghana they don’t import old vehicles; if you import new vehicles in Ghana you pay lower duty. But if you bring those rickety vehicles you will pay high duty and with that they are getting old vehicles off the streets of Ghana”.
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