FG to institutionalize patronage of made in Nigeria products –Mohammed

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed on Thursday hinted that the Federal Government is to institutionalize the patronage of locally-made products among its ministries, departments and agencies.

A statement released by the Special Assistant to the minister, Segun Adeyemi, disclosed that Mohammed stated this in Abuja on Thursday, at the National Media Launch of the “Buy Made-in-Nigeria” Campaign.

He said, “The Federal Government is not just paying lip service to this buy Made-in-Nigeria. We have taken concrete steps to actualize it. It is true that the Federal Executive Council at one of its meetings resolved that the Bureau of Public Procurement Act must be amended in a manner that will give more emphasis and advantage to made in Nigeria products.

“However, we have also realised that less than 30 per cent of government spending ever gets to the level of Bureau for Public Procurement, which means that we must start a ‘root and branch’ reform. This campaign must go down to the level of Permanent Secretaries and Ministerial approvals so that we can actually be able to encourage Nigerians, because as long as we do not encourage the buying of Made-in-Nigeria products, what we are going to do is that we are going to continue exporting jobs to other countries and importing unemployment.”

According to the minister, there was no way the youths were going to be gainfully employed across the country unless Nigerians change their consumption pattern by patronising Made-in-Nigeria products in order to give a boost to the local economy.

He said the government is taking advantage of all the digital platforms on the Internet to connect with the youths and convince them to take ownership of the buy Made-in-Nigeria Campaign, in order to secure their future.

Read also: How vandalism, oil theft denied Nigeria N3.8tn for 2017 budget

The minister further added that the Federal Government is committed to encouraging local manufacturers by enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

“The Federal Government is determined to ensure that we move at least 20 steps up the rank of world global standard of doing business and in the last couple of months, we have achieved some milestone. We have, for instance, been able to achieve 31 major reforms across eight major indicators in the area of Ease of Doing Business, starting from movement of passengers and goods to the time it takes you to register a company.

He said the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) clinic taking place across the country is a deliberate strategy to make available all the stakeholders involved in MSMEs operations, with a view to easing all the bureaucratic bottlenecks to improve the performance of MSMEs.

 

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Click here to download the Ripples Nigeria App for latest updates

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now