The Certified Computer Manufacturers of Nigeria, CCMON, has raised the alarm over the danger of continuous patronage of foreign products to local capacity, growth and development.
The alarm was raised by the president of CCMON, Mrs. Adenike Abudu, at a virtual conference.
This is as she also complained that failure of the government to effectively monitor the implementation of its policy directives on local content in public procurement was also adversely affecting the local capacity, growth and development.
“Foreign brands of PCs are continuously and publicly being embraced to the detriment of local companies,” she said.
She warned that if the continuous preference for foreign products were not checked as a matter of urgency, its negative effects would lead to loss of jobs and capital flight which would consequently affect the growth and development of the country.
According to her, its was appalling that foreign products were still being given preference despite the fact that parts of the EO 3 stated that Made-in-Nigeria products shall be given preference in the procurement of the items and at least 40 per cent of the procurement expenditure on the items in all MDAs of the FGN shall be locally manufactured goods or local service providers.
Abudu stated that MDAs were unfortunately boldly specifying only foreign brands in their invitation for quotes without fear of any regulatory sanctions which though spelt out in the local content policy, were not being implemented by the relevant government agencies charged with the responsibilities.
She pointed out that some of the objectives of CCMON included working with all relevant stakeholders to grow the capacity of Nigeria computer manufacturers so that they could continue to generate increased employment, strengthen the Naira and ensure the growth of the local economy.
She said the group had also pledged to work closely with the National Information and Technology Development Agency, NITDA, and Office for Nigerian Content in Information Technology, ONCT.
She added that the group would also work with the Ministry of Communications and the office of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, that heads the nation’s economic team to ensure that the objectives of the government policies on local content adoption in ICT was properly implemented to the benefit of the country.
This is as she stressed the capacity of the group to manufacture enough quality devices for all MDAs and projects as their recent performance on the N-Power batch A and B device beneficiaries attested to.
“With the impact of the pandemic leading to large number of people working remotely, Nigerian OEMs in PC manufacturing are ready and have the capacity to meet the increased demand for computing devices.
“Other countries are increasing local capacities and patronage to grow their economies and Nigeria may be left behind in the global competitiveness by over dependency on foreign computer hardware and software,” she said.
She appealed to the government to work with CCMON in order to realise the objective of EO 3 AND EO 5.
