By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
With the right funding commensurate with its mandate, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) will be the engine room of ensuring that Nigeria scales up its local content percentage in Nigeria’s industries.
Director Engineering, Technology and Innovation of SMEDAN, Engineer David Abu Ozigi expressed this while fielding questions from newsmen on the sidelines of the launching of the Shade Tree Youth Empowerment Initiative (STYEI) at the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN) in Kaduna on Wednesday.
“SMEDAN has a lot of mandate that can see to the development of Nigeria’s industrial sector and shore up local content, but the funding to make that happen not available,” he said.
Engineer Ozigi was however optimistic that with the desire to diversify the nation’s economy by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government, very soon they would get adequate fund and contribute towards driving the country’s industrial growth.
He lamented that for over four decades of automobile production in Nigeria, PAN is still yet to use local content beyond 20 per cent.
“Our local content should have gone beyond leather and plastic. We should have gone beyond this and be talking about steel production up to local content in vehicles production,” he stressed.
He assured that SMEDAN was committed to keying in with the STYEI project.
“I am happy that entrepreneurial development is embedded in the STYEI training as it would go a long way in ensuring the success of the trainees,” he added.