‘Insincerity bane of auto sector’s growth’

Desired growth in the Nigeria’s automotive sector will remain a mirage if players refused to prioritise local content development and show sincerity towards policy implementation by the government.

According to the Group Managing Director of Proforce Limited, Ade Ogundeyin, most vehicle assemblers appears not interested in local content development.

Ogundeyin, whose organisation is building armoured vehicles from scratch at its Ode Remo, Ogun state plant and currently targets to add about 70 per cent of local content by end of 2017 told The Guardian exclusively in Lagos that most players are only interested in trading against adding value to local industry.

Since most of the players are traders, who are representatives of foreign companies, Ogundeyin believes that it would be difficult for theirs principals to achieve, urging the local brand owners to brace up on quality output that meets market standards.

“Remember that a lot of them are representatives of companies abroad so it will be difficult for them to make things work. For people like us who started from manufacturing, this is our brand and we don’t have to convince anybody to do anything.

“We already have a steel rolling meal where we produce iron rods. We are going to start producing ballistic metal. Presently our local content is about 25 – 30 per cent. But we have mapped out plans to improve”, he said.

The firm, according to him, has concluded plans to enter into a new partnership agreement with some companies to produce armoured glass, which would eventually add up to 70 per cent local content by the end of next year.

Currently, the GMD said the company’s facility is capable of making 480 vehicles every yearly,

The organisation, which has also started exportation of the vehicles to some African countries like Central Africa Republic noted that security situation across the continent is creating market for the company.

“We have been importing our vehicles to other African countries and we are competitive in the market”, Ogunleye said.

Producing affordable vehicle is possible in Nigeria, but for this to happen, Ogunleye said government must buy locally made vehicles, address infrastructure deficits and give loan to serious players at about five per cent interest rate.

“If this becomes feasible, importation would drop drastically, foreign exchange challenges would be addressed and level of local content would increase exponentially”, he said.

Ogundeyin added that the initiative would also create job employment and boost technical competence.

“Government should encourage people who are ready to come up with their own products in Nigeria,” Ogundeyin said, adding that, “this will reduce the cost of the vehicle and even force others to drive down their cost”.

However, with the recent pronouncement by the Federal Government to focus on building industrial complex to bridge equipment and ammunitions gap in the country, Ogundeyin said his organisation has been committed in that regards.

The organisation had signed a deal with Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria and recently entered into a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the same agency to produce mile resistant protector vehicles and other equipment locally.

According to him, as the organisation improves progressively, the country will be committed to building defence industrial complex.

No country can exist without having its own home-made defence industrial complex, Ogundeyin added.

“We are not only talking about building vehicles, there are so many other hardware that deal with defence sector that needs to be home grown. That is very important due to the increasing insecurity in the country”, he said.

Commemting on the renewed committed of the present administration to overhaul Ajaokuta steel complex, Ogundeyin was optimistic that the development would aid the automotive sector if the plan eventually becomes reality.

Meanwhile, he identified the main challenges of automotive policy as infrastructure deficit.

He said, once the infrastructure challenge is addressed, government patronage of made-in-Nigeria vehicles and provision of loan facilities at a good interest rate would make the policy work.

Ogundeyin said the organization has been driving skill acquisition locally and currently has more than 70 per cent of the company’s experts being Nigerians.

“We brought in a lot of expatriate and we did a transfer of technology. We also take some of our men abroad for training. We have been very successful at that,” he said.