“How Buhari Is Compelling Appointees To Patronise Made-in-Nigeria Products”

The Federal Government has said it’s institutionalizing the patronage of locally made products starting with Ministries, Departments and agencies.

Speaking at a National Media Launch on Thursday in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government was not paying lip service to the issue of made-in-Nigeria products.
According to Mohammed, “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 realized that less than 30 percent 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.”

The Minister noted that the Federal Government was 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.

He stressed that the government was 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 8 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.