Few weeks after the Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) Jilani Aliyu, has said that made in Nigerian vehicles will soon be ready, adding that Nigerians can buy and pay in five years’ installment, at a single digit interest rate, experts in the maritime industry have lauded the move, even as they called for an urgent improvement in the nation’s infrastructure.
It will be recalled that at the GITEX 2019 held in Dubai, the United Arab Emirate the DG stated that the agency was collaborating with the, JAIZ, WEMA and Zenith banks with a view of providing single digit financing for made in Nigeria vehicles.
According to him, in about three months, Nigerians can be able to put down 10% and drive made-in- Nigeria vehicles and pay in five years’ time.
Reacting to this, a maritime Lawyer, Emmanuel Nwagbara, in a chat with our correspondent last week in Lagos, expressed satisfaction over the coming together of some banks to ensure the five years’ loan plan for intending vehicles owners.
He maintained that it is one of the moves to create enabling environment for auto policy to thrive, adding that with money available and improvement on infrastructure it would be a huge success.
“We are happy to read that some banks are coming together to give single digit loans to auto manufacturers in Nigeria, that is a good move in the right direction. That is one of the things we expect to be done as part of the enabling environment for auto policy to thrive. Because if we make money available for them, improve on power, provide the test centers for these autos, to meet the international standard and quality then we are beginning to talk about the auto policy”
Nwagbara also said that if the country can be able to produce its own vehicles it will be a big boost to the nation’s economy.
“Those are the things that we expect that the act that will put auto policy in place will have as content. To make it succeed we need some of this content on ground, they are like levers upon which you can place the policy and it will work”
“Don’t forget that if Nigeria produces its own vehicles to sell even in West African countries, our economy will move up even for Nigerians look at the population of the country”
“So there are so many families that need to have vehicles, infact what I read about the way of promoting auto production is that there would be opportunities for people to buy cars and pay in five years if is possible if you can secure a single digit interest rate for auto manufactures”
Also speaking, a frontline vehicle importer and dealer, Emmanuel Ochu, charged the government to work more on the side of reducing duty payable on imported vehicles.
He lamented high duties on imported vehicles saying that it is the reason why the businesses are very slow.
“Because of high duty rate on imported vehicles, people hardly patronize car marts because the cars are abnormally very expensive. Over there, these cars are always at give-away prices but when you bring them here, pay shipping, duty and terminal charges, the price will go up”
“We are begging the government to see what they can do on the area of bringing down the prices of these vehicles so that an ordinary man in the street can afford one” he concluded.
