FEC APPROVES A POLICY TO PRIORITIZE THE PATRONAGE OF LOCAL CONTENTS 05-05-25
By Sadiq Aminu The Federal Executive Council, FEC, has approved a policy to prioritise the patronage of local contents.
Proposed by President Bola Tinubu, the new approach is termed Renewed Hope Nigeria First Policy.
The primary objective of the policy is considering Nigerian local contents first in any official business transactions.
To that effect, FEC has directed Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to prepare an Executive Order to give it a legal backing.
While briefing State House correspondents on the new approach, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Muhammad Idris, said the policy was aimed at enriching citizens and promoting the economy.
“This seeks to foster a new business culture that will be bold, confident, but also very, very Nigerian, and it aims at making government to invest in our people and our industries by changing how government spends money, how we procure and how we also build our economy. Nigerian industry will take precedence in all procurement processes”, he said.
He said contracts would be structured to build domestic capacity, adding that contractors will no longer serve as intermediaries sourcing foreign goods thereby killing local factories.
To ensure effective implementation, the Minister said the proposed policy had been segmented for clear understanding.
“The Bureau for Public Procurement, BPP has been immediately directed to revise and enforce procurement guidelines to prioritise locally made goods and homegrown solutions. It has also been directed to create what is called local content compliance framework for all government procurements. The BPP has also been directed to maintain a register of high quality Nigeria manufacturers and service providers regularly engaged by the federal government”, the Minister explained.
Alhaji Muhammad Idris said the BPP had again been directed to redeploy procurement officers from Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to their offices to ensure efficiency.
“No procurement of foreign goods or services already available locally shall proceed without justification, and the written waiver from BPP, where no viable local option exists, contracts must include provisions for technology transfer, local production or skills development, by way of example, the provision of Portal allocations under the sugar master plan should take into consideration participants backward integration plans and investment in Nigeria and ensure compliance with the Master Plan”, he stressed.
The Minister said by the policy, MDAs are to immediately conduct an audit of all procurement plans and submit revised versions, breaches of which will attract disciplinary action.
The meeting was preceded by President Tinubu’s inauguration of the newly appointed Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission, Dr. Saviour Enyiekere, 12 Commissioners, and two new Permanent Secretaries.