The Minister
of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has said that Federal Government is working
to discourage the country’s technology market from becoming a dumping
ground
for inferior overseas products.He said the government was also planning to
ensure local technology firms are strengthened.
Shittu said
this yesterday during a facility tour of AfriOne’s state-of-the-art laptop and
mobile devices factory in Lagos.The minister, who stated that local firms,
including AfriOne, deserve to be protected from undue industry competition,
said: “I have visited factories like this overseas. So, when I see something
like this in Nigeria, I want to put my full weight behind it and to ensure we
promote it so that government would take it as its own project.”
He, however,
said the government would only give tax rebates to companies who make a genuine
case for it.“If we have cases that are strong enough, certainly, the Federal
Government would look at them,” he said.
Meanwhile,
AfriOne’s Director of Strategy and Government Relations, Lekan Akinjide, said
the company’s products, which include laptops, tablets and mobile phones, could
compete favourably with top players in the industry, especially with the added
advantage of an indigenous end-to-end supply chain.
“It is the
same quality, it is the same benchmark, it is the same testing that our
products go through but with accessible servicing and repairs. “We have a team
here…so in terms of repair works, and servicing, they are done locally.”
Also, the
firm’s production director, Sandeep Natu, who conducted the facility tour, said
the company was ready to create a viable economic cluster that would include
suppliers of the different components the firm needed.
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