National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has disclosed that it has engaged auditors to fish out technologies that have not been registered in the country.
Obiageli Amadiobi, director general of NOTAP, said that with what they have achieved in the ICT sector, some Nigerian companies now export banking applications, which would be replicated in other sectors.
“We have what we call the local content policy. We have done it in ICT, and the good news is that Nigerians are now exporting written applications
“They now have their own applications, banking applications. So, we want the same for all other sectors,” she said.
Speaking on the benefits of the summit, she said, “we will not only bring in the foreigners, we will make them understand their relationship with their organisations in Nigeria and what is expected of them technologically to do.”
She also noted that NOTAP was in partnership with an audit firm to fish out companies with unregistered technologies in the country.
“We are partnering with an auditor who is engaged to fish out these technologies that these people have not registered.
“CBN is doing a wonderful job for us in that line because they are now mandating the banks to ensure, and rightly so, that everybody applying for remittance of money, transfer of money from this country on technologies must obtain NOTAP certificates,” she said.
According to her, it is clear that foreign companies in Nigeria using local raw materials must have a laboratory here.
“If you have a technology imported into this country, and you are operating in this country, the raw materials are here, but you don’t have a laboratory in Nigeria.
“For such people, we make them establish laboratories in Nigeria.
“I visited Cameroon and Ivory Coast with my staff, and we saw where they prepare seedlings for Nigerian markets. They export them to us, whereas the palm plantations are in Nigeria.
“In the next one week, we will be talking to the AGMs of such organisations to ask them to establish laboratories here in Nigeria that can do the same thing.
“And if we succeed in that, it means we are saving the country the money that we should have paid or remitted as foreign exchange to those companies outside the country,” she said.
