NEC briefed on plans to increase government’s patronage of local vehicles

The National Economic Council (NEC) has resolved to encourage the growth of the automotive industry in Nigeria by improving patronage of locally manufactured vehicles, just as the Council got assurances that the current fuel situation in parts of the country would be resolved by next week.

Both of these issues form part of the discussions at this month’s National Economic Council meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, with Governors, Federal Ministers and top officials in attendance.

NEC is composed of all 36 State Governors, the Central Bank Governor and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory alongside some other members of the Federal Executive Council.

Briefing NEC on the benefits of locally manufactured vehicles in the country, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, said despite the potentials, the local automotive industry has been significantly plagued by several challenges such as weak demand for locally assembled cars, as well as lack of government patronage which could have assisted the assemblers in achieving economies of scale.

Also, Council received an update on the Covid-19 vaccination by the Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, calling Council to note that by March next month, the country needs to reach 50% of eligible vaccination at least for the first dose.

Then, by December this year, the plan is to achieve 70% full vaccination rate.

He added that 5 States including FCT are hitting the mark, the States being Nasarawa, Jigawa, Ogun, Osun and Kwara.

The Council resolved that state authorities should prioritise vaccination of citizens against the disease and that since Lagos, and FCT carry the highest-burden, whatever support is necessary should be made available to them.

Update on COVID Outbreak

Situational report on the outbreak of COVID-19 in Nigeria as of 17 February, 2022 showed the total number of cases at 254,091 while the number of cases tested was 4,233,363. The active cases is put at 20,493 while 230,457 cases were discharged and the number of deaths was put at 3,141.

The Council was also informed that cases have declined by 58.6% over the last 6 weeks with only 2 deaths in the past 2 weeks. The NCDC presentation noted that the Centre has engaged health facilities across the federation especially tertiary health facilities in other to curb the death of health workers due to Covid-19.

Implementation and enforcement of the COVID-19 health regulation 2021 signed by President Muhammadu Buhari is in progress to:

*Increase State COVID-19 sample collection and testing.