NAC to Assist PAN on New National Automotive Policy

The renewed step by the National Automotive Council (NAC) to thoroughly implement the Automotive Policy Development Plan, approved by the federal government recently, has begun to pay off in PAN Nigeria Limited, since the policy is expected to revive the nation’s ailing auto sector.

The Director-General of National Automotive Council (NAC), Aminu Jalal stated this, during a recent assessment familiarisation tour of PAN Nigeria Limited, with other members of the council.

Jalal said the council was working hard to ensure that PAN became fully functional this year. “We are working round the clock to implement the new automotive plan so that by 2014 PAN would be fully a functional company, operating one or two shifts because the essence of the plan is to get you back to full production.”

He said PAN actually had tremendous advantage over other auto companies in the country in view of the infrastructure at its disposal.
According to him, it was sad that Nigeria was losing a great deal for serving as dumping ground for imported and used vehicles, but assured that it would not be business as usual because “the new automotive policy is aimed at reversing the negative trend by ensuring that Nigeria begins to produce what it needs locally and also encourage other investors to explore the opportunities for producing parts and components for Peugeot and other companies in the country.”

He said the nation was currently spending so much money on importation of motor vehicles and spare parts, stating that “the figures we have show that last year alone, N550 billion was spent on cars and other vehicles imported into Nigeria and almost a similar figure of N500 billion was used to import spare parts in the same period. On tyres alone, we spent almost N150 billion. That is why this new automotive policy aims to reverse that trend and make factories like PAN produce more of the products at competitive prices to encourage investors come in and explore the advantages, both in assembly and in making parts and components by other companies.”

He further disclosed that “the council is doing all it can to see that the new policy of government is fully implemented, otherwise it would just look as if we just work on paper with no effect. And we hope that you will see changes when the implementation starts, and next time you come to PAN, you will surely see positive changes”.

While stressing the objectives of the new automotive policy of the federal government, Mr. Jalal assured that the policy would go a long way towards encouraging investment in the nation’s automobile sector and also improve the competitive space for local industries especially for production of items that can compete favourably with the imported products.

“In the future, most of the vehicles we have would be sourced locally. Why we want to do this is that the automotive industry is the major employer of labour, whereby if situated properly, will be a major source of employment in the country,” he said.

Jalal explained that NAC wants to encourage the automotive sector to produce and also attract local content, saying that the first part of the policy “is that in the first two years, we want to see that we put condition for the sector, both to assemble and to get the market. “
After that it would have reached a certain level of annual production, then, we can now encourage local content.”

He said, “When PAN was at full capacity, it had over 70 suppliers and when the plant failed, the suppliers were forced to shut down. Any country, whose automobile industry is sound, uses it to fast track its industrialisation.”

On account of this, he said the federal government has made it clear that it would discourage car importation and encourage local production as well as patronage local products.

“We believe that the government would henceforth buy local products. The beauty of it is that local production can be most appreciated if government insists on buying the locally assembled products. We are praying that we succeed in the task of local production; then the issue of patronage will no longer be an issue,” Jalal stated.

Also speaking, the Chairman of NAC, Alhaji Abubakar H. Saleh, reiterated that the familiarisation tour became necessary to see what was on the ground, with a view to seeing how the council can make PAN more viable for the overall benefit of the country, following the approval of the new Automotive Development Plan by the federal government. The chairman assured the new Board and Management of PAN that NAC would work tirelessly to restore PAN’s lost glory, in fulfillment of the aspirations of President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda.                            

Responding, PAN’s Managing Director Mr. Ibrahim Boyi, while urging the council to partner with PAN in the task ahead, said he believes that thorough and proper implementation of the new Automotive Development Plan, would not only serve as a catalyst in the federal government’s drive to revamp the nation’s ailing automobile industry, but would also put in place the desired platform for sustained employment generation and economic empowerment for the citizenry. Mr. Boyi recalled that PAN witnessed a rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s, a period, he said, the federal government supported automobile assembly plants by what he called some level of protection through incentives.

“This plant has produced various brands of vehicles. We achieved our peak production in 1985 when 90,000 cars were produced. What I can assure members of the Board of NAC is that the plant still has the capacity to replicate this performance and even exceed it,” Boyi told the visitors, disclosing that at a point in the history of PAN, the plant had over 4,000 workers, “but sadly today, we have just a little over 250.”

Board members of NAC in the entourage of the chairman included: G.E Edeh, Dr S.C Obasi, Obayi, Mr. A. Madueke and T. Zelomi. Others are, Mr. R.B Salawu, Mr. J.C Nwokoye and Mr. R Bello.

-ThisDay