POLICY FRAMEWORK & SUPPORT MECHANISM FOR INDIGENOUS CONTENT DEVELOPMENT IN THE INDUSTRY By Ajibola Olude, Executive Secretary, ATCON
Appreciation
To start with, I like to extend ATCON’s profound gratitude to the management and staff of NCC for setting up the office of NODITS. The theme is apt and there is no better time to harness the indigenous content for economic growth as well as to network in order to further boost investment to the sector.
Policy framework
A policy framework is a document that sets out a set of procedures or goals, which might be used in negotiation or decision-making to guide a more detailed set of policies, or to guide ongoing maintenance of an organization’s policies. As an industry, we need to put the policy framework together if we are serious about harnessing the advantages inherent in the sector.
Support Mechanism
As we all know that support mechanism is any formal system or method of providing support or assistance. appropriate support mechanisms to aid small businesses. We must work towards giving adequate support for small medium enterprises in the industry to grow through training, tax holidays, soft loans and so on.
As a country, our people have not been taking part in the value change of inputs being used in the industry and we can’t continue like that, we must be able to add value to what would be consumed by our people at the end of the day. And, they way to have it is by allowing us to take part in the value chain of telecom equipment and other related devices.
At a point, we may have to adopt Import Substitution strategy, providing firms with access to the domestic market by restricting or banning imports, we make sure that SME’s have access to cheap credit and tax incentives in the sector.
Benefits Import Substitution
Import Substitution has a number of benefits but because of time constraint, I will mention few:
Increase in the employment rate within a nation
Import substitution will increase the demand for local goods and services, which increases labour requirements. With an increase in labour requirements, employment will rise.
Put simply, the indigenization policy is defined as ‘the roping off of certain types of business activities and reserving these for exclusive ownership and control by Nigerians…” The objective of the policy was therefore to set the stage for greater participation by Nigerian nationals in the ownership, management, …
red & Evans (2018) have enumerated the local content provisions in some sectors of Nigeria to include;
(a) Information and Communications Technology: In 2013, guidelines on Nigerian content development in information and communication technology was released by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Analysis of the guidelines shows that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) companies in Nigeria are to retain 50% (fifty percent) local content. This they are to do directly or by outsourcing to home businesses to persuade Nigerian representation and involvement in the information and communication sector.
(b) Oil and gas: The aim of the law establishing the Nigerian Oil and G
rmacist in Nigeria if he is a Nigerian citizen.
Regulatory Framework and Impact of Local Content Act Implementation in Nigeria In Nigeria, there is established the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB). The Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act was established in 2010. According to the Act establishing the Board, it is vested with the mandate to make procedures that will guide, monitor, direct and apply the contents of the law assented in April 22, 2010. According to the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act (2010) the major functions of the Board include to: develop and run the Nigerian Content Development Fund; review