Nigeria Loses $2.8billion Yearly To Importation of ICT Products

The Minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, disclosed that Nigeria was losing about $2.8billion yearly to the continued importation of ICT hardware.
Lamenting the attendant capital flights from the country and apathy locally made products, he said the importation cedes about 70 per cent of the country’s technology market to the foreign brands.
To this end, the minister said the federal government is set to revalidate its directive on the patronage of locally produced ICT products and services by the Ministries, Departments and Parastatal (MDAs) as a means of promoting local content in the sector.

Shittu stated this at an event in Abuja, said that there will be no excuse for MDAs not to patronise 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.

He said local content 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 in increase demand, thereby creating jobs and contribute to the job and wealth creation component of the government’s Change mantra.

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.

He added that 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).

 

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