Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv Group of Companies, Engr Emeka Okwuosa on Tuesday said his company was committing over N600 million to procure vehicles from Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing company, Nnewi, Anambra State to support local content.
The oil magnate also advised the Federal Government to invest about $1 trillion for over a period of 10 to 20 years to improve infrastructure in Nigeria.
Speaking during a visit to Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing Company (IVM) in Uru Umudim Nnewi, Okwuosa stressed the need for the federal government to encourage industries and roll out good policies that would enable businesses to thrive.
“I am a believer in private enterprise. I do not believe the government should go into building and managing industries or be in engineering, but government should rather articulate and provide the capacity and the enabling environment that would make sure that local industries survive.
“I believe that we should develop local capacity, capacity building not just in terns of infrastructure, but human capacity development which should start from education to training.
“If that is carefully and constantly carried out over a period of time in a well structured manner, Nigeria would develop more than we could imagine because we have people that are capable of thinking and working hard.
Chairman of Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing Company, Chief Innocent Chukwuma, said 60 percent of locally manufactured components were committed by his firm in manufacturing his vehicles.
“We make all the carcass of all our vehicles here, but we import some engines and electrical and body parts, but produce all the plastic parts here.
“We have produced many new vehicles according the demands of the customers and what they need those vehicles for.
“Even if they need what we do not have currently, we can make the mould and produce their request and specifications. That is why we are vehicle manufacturing company, not assembling company,” he said.
