NADDC director reveals capacity to produce 384,000 units, per year

However, the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) has announced that Nigeria has the capacity to roll out more cars.

According to the Director, Policy and Planning, NADDC, Mr. Luqman Mamudu, this country can produce 384,000 units of vehicles, per year!

“The Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) such as Nissan, Ford, among others, usually invest in a country directly but because they are not sure of our environment, they did not really want to come directly, but we encourage partnership with our local entrepreneurs, who are car dealers and ex-car manufacturers.

As I speak, we have investment on ground that can do a combination of SKD and CKD of about 384,000 vehicles.

These number of vehicles can be assembled in this country, anybody can go and check these factories they are there. The down side of it is that, last year, 2015, we produced only 25,000. We have so much capacity and yet we are producing only 25,000. The reasons are many, some of which I know and some of which I don’t know, whatever reason they are, the problem can be solved by all", he stated.

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Mr. Mamudu went on to speak on the challenges of the local auto sector, and why Nigeria's full potential has not been reached.

He blamed this on limiting policies, and the influx of second-hand (tokunbo) vehicles.

“One of the problems is logistics, to order your CKD and SKD from the sources takes quite a while, the bureaucracy is strangulating, so you find that most of the operators are not able to get their input, that is the kit, into their plants as at when due, that in itself is a problem.

We also have the problem of influx of second hand vehicles. Before the investors can put a lot of money to realise this installed capacity, to bring in SKD, even if the Customs administration were perfect, something needs to be done about this influx of the second hand vehicle, because second hand vehicle reduces the market that is available to local entrepreneurs.

By 1981, 120,000 brand new vehicles were being assembled in this country, but by mid 1984 and 1985, not only automotive industry, but most industries in Nigeria collapsed, that is because we were asked to embrace what they call free trade policy by the rest of the world. We embraced the policy and opened up our borders and all the second hand vehicles were flowing into the country and until now they are still flowing.

Of course, we have programmes to curtail influx of second hand vehicles, we are struggling to realise this programme and at the same time to be able to utilise that full capacity, the local entrepreneurs need money to be injected, the OEM is beyond just signing a technical agreement. What we have done is to continue to pursue strategy to realise the reduction in the influx of second hand vehicles without off setting anybody and at the same time we are engaging the OEM", the director revealed.

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"We have also been working with OEMs in their associations to invest in the local automobile assembling, and even industrial assembling clusters.

Their major demands have been for the government and relevant agencies to work harder to implement ways to reduce the influx of used cars which has been choking the market.

We are also glad to announce that three testing laboratories for locally-assembled vehicles are also in the works and these are not just for motorcars alone, but for tractors and heavy-duty vehicles.

We have not reached our potentials as a nation for locally-assembled vehicles, but we have the capacity to do so,” Mamudu added.

Nigeria Today reports that these startling revelations was made at an interactive session with the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria ( CICAN) in Lagos.