February 02, (THEWILL) – Director General, National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Joseph Osanipin, has described his recent trip to South Africa as highly successful, saying Nigeria has a lot to learn from the South African auto industry to develop the local industry in Nigeria.
On the trip with Osanipin, who led a three-man delegation on a week-long visit to the South African Auto Industry, last week and was hosted by the African Association of Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM), were the NADDC Director, Policy Planning & Statistics, M. Sani Musa and the Director, Research, Design & Development, Fidelis Achiv .
Explaining the reasons for the visit in an interview from South Africa during a facility tour of the Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) assembly plant in Kariega, South Africa, Osanipin said, ”I want to see what is happening in other countries and climes to see how we can take what is good in all these areas and replicate the same in Nigeria.
”That was the main reason we came here and we have met AAAM. Fortunately, Martina (Biene) has to wear two caps here as the President of AAAM that has hosted us since Monday that we have been here. They made it easier for us to meet the stakeholders in the industry.”
According to Osanipin, ”On the first day, we met the Automotive Transformation Fund, AAAM, VGA, the institution that champions the automotive agenda for Germany. We met a lot of components parts sectors. From there, we moved on and we decided to come to the headquarters of Volkswagen Africa. ”
‘The director general stated further : “‘We dedicated today for a facility tour. Not only that, we want to know how we can get Volkswagen to be part of what we are doing in Nigeria. We had honest discussions and let them know the reality. It is better we let everyone know our reality so that it will be easier for us to work together.
”Based on that, we had a facility tour with Martina and all our team. We were at the press shop, body shop, assembly plant and we watched the video of the painting. Everything we have seen is amazing. The story of how they started and at a point when they had eleven models. Today, they have two models and they are the one supplying the Polo GTI to the whole world.
”This is the story that we just want to be part of. We have learnt a lot from them and we learnt what we also need to do concerning Nigeria if we need to work hand in hand with Volkswagen Group and Volkswagen Africa, in specific, with Martina on how to grow the auto industry in Nigeria.”
On the lessons learned from the week-long visit, Osanipin said: “The lesson that we have learnt here is firstly, we need to put policy and process in place. That is what can drive investments. Two is that auto is about volumes. We have seen when VW was doing 11 products and they couldn’t meet the numbers they were doing. But now, they have only two models and they are doing far better in terms of the number they are doing. It is all about volume. Today, we have different kinds of volumes in Nigeria.”
According to Osanipin, ”In SA, we have seven manufacturers with 40 models. With this, it has enabled them to put up huge volumes. So compare that one with what we are doing in Nigeria today, where we have varieties of assemblers of over 35 and we are still getting more. So, this is what we get to look at. Even to look at the components parts. If we have all these everywhere, how are we going to get the component parts that will come with that volume?
“It is a lesson that we have learnt and some other things we need to do differently like bringing VW or any other OEM that will produce new vehicles, then we need to look at the quality of our fuel. We have Euro 3 but we need to produce at Euro 4. All these things are things we have learnt that we will start working on and see how we can prepare the ground for them, for huge investments from OEMs and most especially from VW. “
About the Author
Olaolu OLUSINA is the Editor, THEWILL Newspaper.
